Bielan was chairman of the
Independent Students' Union from 1996 to 1998.
In September 1997, he was elected to the
Sejm for
Solidarity Electoral Action on the national list: 9 days after his 23rd birthday. The following year, he joined the
Conservative People's Party. In 1999, he became vice-chairman of the
European Democrat Students, in which capacity he served for one year. He joined the
Right Alliance (PP) when it was formed in 2001, and ran successfully on the
Law and Justice (PiS) list in
that year's election in
Chrzanów. He joined Law and Justice when the PP merged into it in 2002. He was appointed to the
European Parliament on Poland's accession on 1 May 2004 and was re-elected in the
election in June 2004, representing
Lesser Poland and Świętokrzyskie, which includes Chrzanów. Together with fellow MEP
Michał Kamiński, Bielan was behind
Lech Kaczyński's successful campaign in the
2005 presidential election. In 2007, Bielan was elected as the
Vice President of the European Parliament, as the representative of
Union for Europe of the Nations, to which PiS belonged. Bielan was re-elected to the European Parliament at the
2009 election, and joined the
European Conservatives and Reformists group with PiS. He was elected one of the ECR's two Vice-Chairmen, with
Michał Kamiński as chairman. Along with Kamiński and two other MEPs, Bielan became associated with the
Poland Comes First party in November 2010. They continued to sit with the ECR in the Parliament and Bielan continued to be group Vice-Chairman. Bielan left Poland Comes First on 18 March 2011 to sit as an independent. He joined the newly found
Poland Together party in January, 2014. He was excluded from the party in 2021. ==Footnotes==