European regions and cities reacted with great emotion on Monday 14 January to the death of Paweł Adamowicz, mayor of Gdansk in Poland, who died from wounds sustained during a knife attack the day before while attending a national charity event.
“Today, we have lost a man who represented the European spirit. Paweł was a true humanitarian, a fighter for human rights and a protector of democracy," wrote Karl-Heinz Lambertz, President of the Committee of the Regions, of which Mr Adamowicz had been a member since 2011, in a statement and tweet honouring the Mayor of Gdansk.
In the Committee, Mr Adamowicz was considered a leader and pioneer in the integration of migrants, an internal source told us. In his city, for example, he developed the "urban model of integration of migrants" which aims to help migrants in various fields to become members of the urban community.
Not hesitating to criticise his government, he had berated Warsaw’s attitude towards migrants in particular in a speech in early December 2016 at the European Union mayors’ summit in the Vatican, in which he declared that he “was ashamed of his country for not accepting refugees”.
For its part, EUROCITIES, the network of major European cities, praised Adamowicz’s openness and commitment to public service, while recalling that he did not hesitate to defend the rights of people at the height of the refugee crisis, and was a strong supporter of LGBT rights.
Like the Committee of the Regions, the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR) praised the mayor of Gdansk's commitment to defending freedoms and respecting democracy. For Stefano Bonaccini, CEMR president, “with the death of Paweł Adamowicz, the whole of local and regional Europe is in mourning”. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot – intern)