chaired between 2007 and 2009. In late 2004, Saryusz-Wolski's candidacy to become Poland’s first-ever European Commissioner was supported by the main Polish opposition parties but the post eventually went to the country’s Europe minister, Danuta Hübner. In March 2006, Saryusz-Wolski was elected Vice President of the European People's Party (EPP) for a three-year term. He also served as Vice-President and member of the national board of Civic Platform until October 2010 and as leader of the Polish delegation of centre-right MEPs until 2012. In 2007, the Civic Platform failed to secure sufficient backing from within the centre-right European People’s Party Group for Saryusz-Wolski, its candidate as for the post of Vice-President of the European Parliament. In 2010, Saryusz-Wolski joined the Friends of the EEAS, a unofficial and independent pressure group formed because of concerns that the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton was not paying sufficient attention to the Parliament and was sharing too little information on the formation of the European External Action Service. In addition to his parliamentary assignments, Saryusz-Wolski chaired the EPP Energy Ministers Meeting until 2017. In 2015, he and Françoise Grossetête guided the EPP’s working groups on economy and environment and foreign affairs in developing options for getting the EU to speak with a unified voice on external energy security matters. In March 2017, the Polish government of Prime Minister Beata Szydło openly opposed the reelection of Donald Tusk as President of the European Council for a second two-and-a-half year term and put forward Saryusz-Wolski as a challenger. After Saryusz-Wolski accepted the nomination for Council president, Civic Platform ejected him from the party. He was subsequently stripped of his position of Vice-President within the EPP. He also stopped being a member of the EPP group in the Parliament. In February 2019, he was appointed as the leader of the Law and Justice (PiS) list in the European elections in constituency No. 4 (Warsaw). In March of the same year he joined the parliamentary group of European Conservatives and Reformists. As a result of the May vote, he was elected the MEP for the fourth time, receiving 186,851 votes. Political positions Saryusz-Wolski is widely regarded as having played a big role in the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine and in support for the opposition in Belarus. In the debate on the EU’s energy diversification and security policies, he has