Outspoken Polish foreign minister one of 'top global thinkers'

Radoslaw Sikorski: photo - PAP/Grzegorz Jakubowski

Minister Sikorski was put into the ranking for “telling the truth, even when it’s not diplomatic,” according to the magazine read by top diplomats and policy analysts.

Radoslaw Sikorski is known for making frank and sometimes controversial statements on world issues to journalists and even from his own Twitter account.

On the future of Europe, he said in a speech in Berlin this year: “I fear German power less than I am beginning to fear German inactivity.”

On the banking crisis and huge bonuses some bankers have been paying themselves, Sikorski, who was educated at Oxford University, said: “Bankers should be paid in proportion to the capital they generate, rather than debts they run up.”

Days before the crunch EU summit in Brussels on the 2014 – 20, Sikorski wrote in the Guardian newspaper: “The EU needs more British common sense but Britain also needs friends. A test of that friendship is coming up”.

Sikorski also wrote that EU cohesion funds, which aid poorer EU nations are “our Marshall Plan” and a pay back “ for Yalta” in 1945, when Poland was handed over to the Soviets with the agreement of the UK and the US.

The Economist blog recounted a dinner in 2001, where a British conservative was asking Sikorski why Poland was so eager to join the EU.

"Why is Poland of all countries selling out to Brussels?" said the Tory. "Do you think we should rely on Britain, like we did in 1939?" was Sikorski's acid reply.

The Foreign Policy magazine's 2011 list included US President Barack Obama, Myanmar’s opposition leader and Nobel prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, economist Joseph Stiglitz, entrepreneurs and philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. (pg)