Rajkowski was born in 1988 in the Gelderland city Nijmegen to a Polish father, who was a teacher and an entrepreneur, and a mother, who was half Dutch and half Polish and worked as a manager for the province of Gelderland.[4][5][6] She has a younger sister and grew up in the city Arnhem, where she attended the high school Stedelijk Gymnasium Arnhem.[4][7] Rajkoswki moved to Utrecht to study economics at university and was a member of the student association Unitas. She switched to public administration at Leiden University after a year, and she became a member of the Youth Organisation Freedom and Democracy (JOVD), the VVD's independent youth division.[4][8]
Career and local politics
Rajkowski was elected to the Utrecht municipal council in the 2014 municipal elections, appearing fifth on the VVD's party list.[9] She became her party's spokesperson for safety in the council.[10] At the time, she had also been working for the government of the municipality of Utrecht since 2013.[8] Thereafter, she filled positions related to education at Orion Duurzaam Leren and eFcous before moving in 2016 to Valtech, where she would later serve as head of learning and development.[4][8][11] As a councilor, Rajkowski criticized the decision by SPO, which is responsible for Utrecht's public primary schools, to stop using Zwarte Piet in its Sinterklaas celebrations, saying parents had not been properly consulted.[12] Besides, she advocated closing Utrecht's street prostitution zone in favor of window prostitution.[13]
She was placed second on the party list in the 2018 municipal election in Utrecht and was re-elected to the council.[14] She became the VVD's vice caucus leader in the council, while safety, jobs, and income were among her specializations.[15] When the commemoration of the 2019 Utrecht tram shooting was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Rajkowski called on Utrecht's citizens to observe one minute of silence and to light a candle.[16]
House of Representatives
She ran for member of parliament in the 2021 general election as the VVD's thirteenth candidate and was elected with 3,246 preference votes.[17] She was installed as House member on 31 March and became the first person on that body of Polish descent.[18] Rajkowski had already left Utrecht's municipal council in February, and she also left Valtech.[2] In the House, she was the VVD's spokesperson for digitization, government IT, telecommunications, the General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD), and cybersecurity.[19] She called for Russian hackers to be put on the European sanction list during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[20] Rajkowski also proposed a ban on deepfake technology out of concern for its usage for revenge porn and political hoaxes. She raised the possibility of an exception for businesses using the technology for legitimate usages.[21] A motion by Rajkowski requesting the cabinet to draft such a bill passed the House of Representatives in November 2022.[22]
Rajkowski was re-elected in November 2023, but she temporarily left the House for her maternity leave on 8 December – days after the swearing in of new members. Her leave ended on 29 March 2024.[23] She became the VVD's spokesperson on digitization, cybersecurity, AIVD, and childcare until her portfolio was changed to asylum, migration, AIVD, and racism when the Schoof cabinet was sworn in.[24]
Rajkowski lives in the city of Utrecht, and she got married in 2022.[5][25] In early 2023, she was a contestant of the KRO-NCRV quiz show De slimste mens, surviving four episodes. The first of those was seen by over 2.5 million people.[26][27]
^ abcdRajkowski, Queeny (23 May 2016). "Ik krijg de kriebels van het woord kwetsbaar" [I get the chills when I hear the word vulnerable]. AD (Interview) (in Dutch). Interviewed by Hans van de Ham. Retrieved 29 March 2021.
^Maes, John (1 December 2015). "Nog meer ruzie over Zwarte Piet" [Even more fighting about Zwarte Piet]. De Telegraaf (in Dutch). p. 18.
^Van Renselaar, Michiel (9 May 2018). "Nieuw Zandpad weer verder weg" [Nieuw Zandpad again unlikelier]. De Telegraaf (in Dutch). p. 12.
^Meerding, Tess (12 December 2017). "Kandidaten Utrechtse VVD" [Candidates of the Utrecht VVD]. De Utrechtse VVD (Press release) (in Dutch). Retrieved 30 March 2021.
^Van Dijk, Marjolein (9 April 2018). "Nieuwe portefeuilleverdeling fractie bekend" [New division portfolio caucus known]. De Utrechtse VVD (Press release) (in Dutch). Retrieved 1 April 2021.
^"Kiesraad benoemt vier Tweede Kamerleden" [Electoral Council appoints four members of parliament]. Electoral Council (Press release) (in Dutch). 11 December 2023. Retrieved 13 April 2024.
