It surprises no one that the ultra-conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) is clinging to power to avoid losing control of the Polish public media, which has served as a propaganda tool for it for eight years. But no one expected them to occupy the headquarters and barricade themselves for days to deny access to their offices to the new bosses, who were appointed last week by the new coalition government led by Liberal Donald Tusk in a move that has raised legal doubts arises. A new open battle in this war also came as a surprise: President Andrzej Duda's veto on the media budget last Saturday in order to prevent its financing in extreme cases. The reason, in his opinion, is that the public institution was taken over illegally. While this race was underway, the Prime Minister took advantage of this Wednesday to announce that this money will be used for the treatment of childhood oncology and the mental health of minors. Culture Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz announced shortly afterwards that he had decided to have the media liquidated, later adding that the measure aimed to “ensure the continuity of the operations of these companies.” It is the first major clash in what is expected to be a difficult coexistence between the executive and Duda, who comes from the ranks of the PiS.
Last week, Tusk presented a draft budget for 2024 that did not include a public media item. The new prime minister would have signaled during the election campaign that he wanted to dissolve TVP, the public television station that carried out attacks against him during the years of the PiS government. “Public television as it exists now does not deserve to be funded by the taxpayer,” the Prime Minister said. However, on Friday, the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish parliament, voted on a budget-related bill that allocated 3 billion zloty (around 691 million euros) in funding for the media in the form of subsidies. linked to conditions. This is the bill that Duda announced his veto on December 23 and which contains many other points, such as provisions for a 30 percent increase in teachers' salaries.
“In view of the blatant violation of the constitution and the principles of the democratic rule of law, there can be no consent for this. “First, we must fix public resources reliably and legally,” the president said, referring to money. As in a game of chess, Tusk advanced his next step this Wednesday: a legislative initiative in response to Duda's veto. “We have prepared a new draft law allocating 3 billion euros to the National Health Fund for pediatric oncology and child psychiatry,” he announced after the Council of Ministers meeting.
The next step was the announcement of the media liquidation process. In a statement shared on X, formerly Twitter, Sienkiewicz argued that Duda's veto forced the executive branch to take this action. “In the current situation, this measure will ensure the continuity of the operations of these companies, allow the necessary restructuring to be carried out and prevent layoffs of employees in the above-mentioned companies due to lack of funding,” the minister said. As he explained, the owner of the companies, i.e. the state, can revoke the “liquidation status” at any time. With this trick, the government guarantees control of the media without legal doubt.
As the Polish edition of Business Insider points out, the minister's announcement with the restrictions contained therein “does not necessarily mean the end of TVP or Polskie Radio in the way they currently operate.” The business newspaper interprets the movement as “an attempt to put pressure on the opposition and convince them to stop blocking changes.”
The digital newspaper quotes Katarzyna Bilewska, a professor at the Institute of Commercial Law at the University of Warsaw, who had already reflected on the presidential veto and how the lack of the 3 billion zloty could mean “insolvency or at least threatened insolvency”. . The expert suggested that this would be the basis for submitting a restructuring application and, along with it, an application for the appointment of an administrator in the restructuring process. And this, he emphasized, opened the door to personnel changes that did not raise legal doubts.
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Dual presidency
Sienkiewicz, a man close to Tusk who served as interior minister in previous terms, fired the presidents of television, radio and the PAP news agency last week and appointed new leadership. He used a legal trick that relied on the Commercial Code as a 100 percent shareholder of public corporations and bypassed the National Media Council (RMN, Polish acronym). This body, founded by PiS in 2016 and controlled by loyalists to the previous executive branch, has, among other things, the power to make these appointments. On Tuesday morning, the television news channel TVP Info stopped broadcasting and the power outage further fueled the protest by PiS MPs.
The ministry's move sparked immediate concern among some rule-of-law voices, who have long warned that restoring the rule of law and redressing abuses committed by PiS must be done carefully and without shortcuts. The Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, an organization recognized for its fight for democratic values and the castigation of the judiciary and judiciary, defends the need for changes in the public media, but criticized the actions of the new government, which in its The opinion “throws raises serious doubts with regard to constitutional norms.”
The National Media Council responded to the appointments with an extraordinary meeting this Tuesday, a public holiday in Poland, at which it appointed a new president of the TVP. For the deputy of the Civic Platform, Tusk's party, and lawyer Roman Giertych, the owner's announcement to liquidate TVP “puts an end to the legal dispute” because the administrator will be included in the national register.
This Wednesday, before the announcement of the liquidation, the parliamentary group for Law and Justice submitted a motion of no confidence against the Minister of Culture for his “attempt to forcibly take over public media”. On the same day, the first working day after the Christmas break, Duda presented his budget proposal to the chambers with a request that they urgently meet before the end of the year. Sejm President Szymon Holownia, co-chair of Third Way, the center-right coalition member of the executive branch, confirmed the reception but replied that the chamber would not meet before January 10 and 11 as planned. After the minister's announcement, Marcin Mastalerek, head of Duda's office, considered the liquidation a failure in his attempt to seize power over the media, recalling that it was “one of the original ideas of the governing coalition”, as stated on several occasions described media.”
In his press conference this Wednesday, Tusk assured that the government would continue to finance the media through an emergency reserve created by his predecessor Mateusz Morawiecki and available to the Prime Minister. “You will receive support, but it will not be Byzantine,” said the leader, who criticized that the millions the PiS government had previously injected ended up in his own pockets. “The public media under the PiS mandate has poisoned public life,” he concluded.
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