President Andrzej Duda, by decision of December 6, 2023, appointed Artur Soboń as a member of the management board of the National Bank of Poland – it is reported on the website of the Chancellery of the President. Artur Soboń is a former deputy minister of finance, who has been a member of the Sejm since 2015. The Act on the National Bank of Poland states that “a member of the NBP management board may not hold any other positions or undertake any gainful or public activity other than scientific, teaching or authorial work.”
“The President of the Republic of Poland, Andrzej Duda, by resolution of December 6, 2023, appointed Artur Soboń as a member of the Management Board of the National Bank of Poland. The nomination took place on December 6, 2023 at the Presidential Palace,” the press release read.
“I would like to thank President Andrzej Duda for appointing me to the management board of the NBP. Thank you for the trust of President Adam Glapiński and the consent of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. For the next 6 years, I will serve Poland and PLN in the central bank, to which from today I devote all of my public activity,” Soboń wrote on the platform X (formerly Twitter).
Who is Artur Soboń?
Artur Soboń has been a Member of Parliament since 2015 Sejm of the Republic of Poland. In the parliamentary elections in October 2023, he won a parliamentary seat for the third time in a row (with the result of 32,357 votes). He ran as a candidate in the Lublin district no. 6 and took second place on the Law and Justice list after Przemysław Czarnek.
Pursuant to Art. 18 of the Act on the National Bank of Poland, “a member of the NBP management board may not hold any other positions or undertake any gainful or public activity other than scientific, teaching or authorial work.”
Artur Soboń served as deputy minister of finance in the previous government Mateusz Morawiecki. His task in the ministry was, among others, coordination of work on the implementation of the Polish Order, i.e. a number of changes regarding taxes. The new regulations were controversial and there was a lot of confusion around them.
In 2021-2022, he was Secretary of State at the Ministry of Development and Technology and the Plenipotentiary of the Prime Minister for local development.
In 2018-2019, he was Secretary of State at the Ministry of Investment and Development, responsible, among others, for: for construction and the Eastern Poland Operational Program 2014-2020, in 2019 he served as Secretary of State at the Ministry of Funds and Regional Policy and later at the Ministry of State Assets, where he served as the government plenipotentiary for the transformation of energy companies and coal mining.
Artur Soboń is a graduate of the Faculty of Humanities at the Catholic University of Lublin John Paul II in Lublin (master’s thesis entitled Political power in the conservative thought of the Second Polish Republic) and the Collegium of Business Studies of the Warsaw School of Economics (master’s thesis entitled Value-building strategy on the example of Lubelski Węgiel Bogdanka). A graduate of postgraduate studies in European projects at the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin and accounting and finance at the Catholic University of Lublin. He also completed doctoral studies in economics at the College of Social Sciences of the Warsaw School of Economics.
He has been associated with the Świdnik City Hall since 2001, initially as head of the Strategy and Development Department, then from 2006 as city secretary. In the years 2006-2010, he was a district councilor and a social member of the Świdnica district board. In the period 2010-2015, councilor of the Lublin Voivodeship assembly.
Management Board of the National Bank of Poland
The activities of the National Bank of Poland are managed by the NBP Management Board. It consists of: the President of the NBP – as chairman and 6 to 8 members of the management board, including two vice-presidents of the NBP.
Members of the management board of the central bank are appointed and dismissed by the President of the Republic of Poland at the request of the President of the NBP. The term of office of members of the bank’s management board is 6 years and the same person cannot be a member of the NBP management board for more than two consecutive terms.
The NBP Management Board implements resolutions of the Monetary Policy Council and adopts resolutions on matters not reserved in the Act for the exclusive competence of other NBP bodies. The scope of activities of the NBP Management Board includes, among others: carrying out tasks in the field of exchange rate policy, supervising open market operations, assessing the functioning of the banking system, analyzing the stability of the national financial system, adopting the NBP business plan and financial plan.
Apart from Artur Soboń, the Management Board of the National Bank of Poland includes: Adam Glapiński (President of the NBP), Marta Kightley (Deputy President of the NBP – first deputy president of the NBP), Adam Lipiński (Deputy President of the NBP), Marta Gajęcka, Paweł Mucha, Piotr Pogonowski, Rafał Sura and Paweł Szałamacha.
Main photo source: Rafał Guz/PAP