Olechowski, who died on April 25 at age 78, served as foreign minister from 1993 to 1995. In April 1994, he formally submitted Poland's application to become a member of the European Union, which the country joined a decade later.
Family, friends and officials gathered for a funeral Mass at St. Anne's Church in Warsaw's southern Wilanów district to pay their respects and recall his role in Poland's democratic transition in the early 1990s.
"My father was an ardent patriot, a European and a transatlanticist," his son Marcin Olechowski said in a eulogy, highlighting his father's efforts to anchor Poland in the West after decades of communism, as well as his early interest in popularising rock music alongside journalist Wojciech Mann.
Polish music journalist Wojciech Mann (right), a close friend of the departed, arrives with son Marcin (left) to attend the state funeral at St. Anne's Church in Warsaw's Wilanów district. Photo: PAP/Rafał Guz
Among those attending were Prime Minister Donald Tusk, former President Bronisław Komorowski and upper-house Speaker Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska.
The Mass was celebrated by Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz, the former archbishop of Warsaw.
Former Polish President Bronisław Komorowski, Prime Minister Donald Tusk and upper-house Speaker Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska leave the church after the funeral service for Andrzej Olechowski in southern Warsaw on Wednesday. Photo: PAP/Rafał Guz
After the service, a funeral procession moved to the local cemetery, where Olechowski’s urn was placed in a family grave, public broadcaster TVP Info reported.
Olechowski also served as finance minister in 1992 in the government of Jan Olszewski.
In 2001, he co-founded the centrist Civic Platform (PO) party with Tusk and middle-of-the-road politician Maciej Płażyński. The party went on to become one of Poland's dominant political forces and now governs the country rebranded as the Civic Coalition (KO).
Donald Tusk, Maciej Płażyński and Andrzej Olechowski in 2001. Photo: Przemek Wierzchowski/PAP
Widely known as "one of the three tenors of the Civic Platform," Olechowski ran as an independent candidate for president in 2000 and 2010.
In 2000, he finished second with 17.3 percent of the vote, behind incumbent Aleksander Kwaśniewski. In 2010, he placed sixth in the first round, with 1.44 percent, before backing Komorowski in the runoff.
After an unsuccessful bid for mayor of Warsaw in 2002, he gradually withdrew from party politics and left the Civic Platform in 2009.
Andrzej Olechowski, pictured in 2010. Photo: Komitet Wyborczy Andrzeja Olechowskiego 2010, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Born on September 9, 1947 in Kraków, southern Poland, Olechowski studied economics in Warsaw, where he earned a doctorate, and also studied in Geneva. He worked with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the World Bank.
In addition to his political career, he lectured at several universities and authored publications on economics and foreign policy.
Komorowski described him as "a man of value" and "a model of public service."
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