The Office of the Committee for European Integration was established on the 3 October 1996 and from the beginning it coordinated the activities of all ministries and institutions directly involved in the process of Poland's integration with the European Union. It assumed the tasks of the Government Plenipotentiary for the European Integration and Foreign Aid.

Priority tasks of the UKIE till 1 May 2004:

• acceleration of works on harmonization of the Polish law with the Community law - the scope of amendments to be introduced to the Polish law required acceleration of the Government's and Parliament's works on drafts of acts concerning European integration by means of establishing a special vehicle for coordinating such works, which was the National Program of Preparation to the Membership of the Republic of Poland in the European Union (NPPM), and by means of establishing a special procedure for handling such drafts. As a part of fulfilling that priority task the Office issued opinions also on draft legal acts in respect of their compliance with the EU laws, and assessed the progress in adjustment processes;
• strengthening coordination between ministries - efficient implementation of the process of introducing the required amendments to legislation, as well as other accommodation activities related to the institutional preparation required efficient cooperation from all the institutions responsible for particular tasks. This was particularly important in the area of accelerating legislative works, both at the level of the Government and of the Parliament. A decision of the Council of Ministers to complete in 2001 works related to the adoption of European acts required all the ministries and central offices to meet the adopted deadlines.
• development of Government's activities in the area of informing about the integration process - as the crucial phase of the process of preparation to membership in the EU was commenced, the UKIE prepared and implemented, as a part of its tasks, a Public Information Programme (PIP). It was important to provide to as many recipients as possible reliable and readily accessible information concerning European integration and to maintain the support from the society for our membership in the Union. UKIE cooperated also with non-governmental organizations and local authorities.
• supporting the activities aimed at becoming a member of the EU with an extended strategy resulting from a detailed analysis of the costs of that process and the benefits resulting from there. It was the task of the Office to make sure - in cooperation with ministries and central offices and on the basis of prepared analyses - that an optimum schedule of such activities is prepared.

Activities conducted by the Office of the KIE since 1 May 2004:

• coordination of activities aimed at preparation of the Polish administration to hold the Presidency in the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2011,
• participation in the process of creating the EU law,
• implementation of the EU law,
• coordination of the process of preparing draft instructions for meetings of the Council of the European Union, COREPER I and COREPER II,
• monitoring of works conducted by the committees and working parties of the European Union,
• coordination of cooperation with Members of the European Parliament,
• representation before the European Court of Justice,
• management of member funds,
• analysis of new phenomena, strategies and trends in the EU, e.g. the Lisbon Strategy, the New Financial Perspective and other,
• issuing opinions on legal regulations and programme documents,
• cooperation with the Sejm in accordance with the Act of 11 March 2004 on cooperation between the Council of Ministers and the Sejm and the Senat in matters related to the membership of the Republic of Poland in the European Union,
• further training of the administrative staff,
• completion of supervision over PHARE,
• programming of the so-called Transition Facility,
• responsibility for implementation of two priorities as a part of the Financial Mechanisms: "Human resources development through, inter alia, promotion of education and training, strengthening of administrative or public service capacities of local government or its institutions, as well as democratic processes which support it" - priority 2.4 of the Operational Programme and "Technical assistance relating to the implementation of acquis communautaire" - priority 2.10 of the Operational Programme.,
• continuation of the process of collecting documents and publishing information materials,
• correction of prepared translations (corrections, that is corrigenda to translations, are published by Member States for many years after accession), and other.