Danuta Hübner graduated in 1971 from the Foreign Trade Faculty of the Warsaw School of Economics. She receives her PhD in 1974 and holds a post-doctoral degree in international trade relations. Since 1992 she is full Professor of Economics at the Warsaw School of Economics lecturing also at the California State University and at the Universidad Autonoma in Madrid. DH is author of many publications on economic activity research and development and she continued publishing also after her entry in public service. Her public career starts in Poland in 1992 as chairwomen in the Polish Central Planning Office and continues from 1994 onwards in various qualifications on Ministerial level and as adviser to the Polish Prime Minister and President. She is the chief negotiator on Polish accession to the OECD (1995 – 1996) and Minister for European Affairs for the Polish Government from 2003 to 2004. From 1998 to 2000 she is Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe in Geneva. After the accession of Poland to the EU, she is, together with Pascal Lamy, member of the European Commission with responsibility for trade from 05 to 11/2004, and from 11/2004 to 07/2009 Commissioner in charge of regional policy. Elected member of the European Parliament for the European People's Party (EPP) in 2009, she holds the chair of the Committee on Regional Development until 2014 and since 2014 the chair of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
Amongst the honours she has been awarded are the title of ‘Officier de l'ordre national de la Légion d'honneur’ of France, the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of Portugal, the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, and many honorary doctorates from, amongst others, the Universities of Sussex, Sofia, Camerino, Poznan and Valeciennes.