No one is surprised that the ultra-conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) clings to power to avoid losing control of the Polish public media, which has served it as a propaganda tool for eight years. But no one expected them to occupy the headquarters and barricade themselves for days to prevent access to their offices by the new bosses, appointed last week by the new coalition government led by the liberal Donald Tusk in a movement that raises legal doubts. A new open battle in this war also took by surprise, the veto of the media budget launched last Saturday by the president, Andrzej Duda, to prevent in extremis its financing. The reason is that, in his opinion, the public entity has been taken over illegally. With that race underway, the prime minister took advantage of this Wednesday to announce that this money will be allocated to the treatment of childhood oncology and the mental health of minors. The Minister of Culture, Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz, announced shortly afterwards that he had decided to put the media into liquidation, adding later that the measure aims to “guarantee the continuity of the operation of these companies.” It is the first major clash in what was expected to be a difficult coexistence between the Executive and Duda, who comes from the ranks of PiS.
Last week Tusk presented a draft budget for 2024 that did not contain any item for public media. The new prime minister would have given signs during the campaign of wanting to dismantle TVP, the public television channel that carried out attacks against him during the years of the PiS government. “Public television, as it exists now, does not deserve to be financed by taxpayers,” the prime minister said. On Friday, however, a bill associated with the budget was voted in the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish Parliament, which included 3 billion zlotys (about 691 million euros) of funding for the media in the form of subject subsidies. to conditions. It is the bill that on December 23 Duda said that he would veto and that includes many other items, such as provisions for a 30% increase in teachers' salaries.
“There can be no consent to this given the flagrant violation of the Constitution and the principles of a democratic rule of law. “First we have to repair public means in a reliable and legal way,” said the president in relation to money. As in a chess game, Tusk advanced his next move this Wednesday: a legislative initiative in response to Duda's veto. “We have prepared a new bill in which 3 billion euros will be made available to the National Health Fund for pediatric oncology and child psychiatry,” he announced after the meeting of the Council of Ministers.
The next move 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 to take this measure. “In the current situation, this action will guarantee the continuity of the operation of these companies, will allow the necessary restructuring to be carried out and avoid layoffs of employees in the aforementioned companies due to lack of financing,” said the minister. As he explained, the owner of the companies, that is, the State, can withdraw the “liquidation status” at any time. With this trick, the Government guarantees control of the media without legal doubts.
As pointed out the polish edition of Business Insider, The minister's announcement, with the qualifications it introduces, “does not necessarily mean the end of TVP or Polskie Radio in the way they currently operate.” The economic newspaper interprets the movement as “an attempt to pressure the opposition and convince it to stop blocking the changes.”
The digital newspaper quotes Katarzyna Bilewska, professor at the Department of Commercial Law at the University of Warsaw, who had already reflected on the president's veto and how the lack of the 3 billion zlotys could mean “insolvency or, at least, threat of insolvency”. The expert suggested that this would be the basis for submitting a restructuring application and, as part of it, an application for the appointment of an administrator in the restructuring procedure. And this, she stressed, opened the door to personnel changes that do not raise legal doubts.
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Double presidency
Sienkiewicz, a man close to Tusk who served as head of the Interior in previous terms, dismissed the presidents of television, radio and the PAP news agency last week and appointed a new leadership. He did it using a legal trick, relying on the commercial code as a 100% shareholder of public entities and bypassing the National Media Council (RMN, in its Polish acronym). This body created by PiS in 2016 and controlled by loyalists of the previous Executive, has among its powers the powers to make these appointments. On Tuesday morning, the television news channel, TVP Info, stopped broadcasting and the blackout further fueled the protest by PiS deputies.
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, with no shortcuts. The Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, a recognized organization for its fight for democratic values and scourge of the Law and Justice Executives, which defends the need for changes in the public media, however criticized the actions of the new Government, which in His opinion “raises serious doubts in light of constitutional norms.”
The National Media Council responded to the appointments with an extraordinary meeting this Tuesday, a holiday in Poland, in which it appointed a new president of TVP. For the deputy of Civic Platform, Tusk's party, and lawyer Roman Giertych, “the owner's announcement of the liquidation of TVP puts an end to the litigation,” because the administrator will be included in the national registry.
This Wednesday, the parliamentary group of Law and Justice registered a motion of no confidence against the minister of culture for his “attempt to take over public media by force”, before the announcement about the liquidation. On the same day, the first work day after the Christmas break, Duda had presented his proposal of budgets to the chambers with the request that they meet urgently before the end of the year. The president of the Sejm, Szymon Holownia, co-leader of Third Way, the center-right coalition member of the Executive, acknowledged receipt but has replied that the Chamber will not meet until January 10 and 11, as scheduled. Following 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 and recalled that this “was one of the original ideas of the government coalition.” , described many times in the media.”
In his press conference this Wednesday, Tusk assured that the Government will continue to finance the media through an emergency reserve at the disposal of the prime minister created by his predecessor, Mateusz Morawiecki. “They will receive support, but it will not be Byzantine,” said the leader, who criticized that the millions that the PiS Government previously injected ended up in the pockets of his own. “The public media under the PiS mandate poisoned public life,” he concluded.
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