In Poland, companies from overseas should no longer be allowed to hold majority stakes in radio and television broadcasters. The law targets a station critical of the government. In the dispute over this, the government alliance collapsed. There is also criticism from the USA.
One day after the break of the national-conservative coalition in Poland, parliament approved the government’s controversial media law. The law was passed in Warsaw on Wednesday evening with 228 votes in favor to 216 against. According to critics, the law threatens the freedom of the press and could affect relations with the United States. The Washington government expressed “deep concern” about the bill.
The Polish private broadcaster TVN called on the Polish Senate and President Andrzej Duda after the vote in parliament to stop the law. The station described the vote in the Sejm as an “unprecedented attack on freedom of expression and the independence of the media”. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the law threatened freedom of the media in Poland. The project violates “the principles and values for which modern and democratic nations stand up”.
Opposition doubts the legality of the law
The debate on the draft law had kept MPs in suspense for hours. First, the opposition won a vote to postpone the meeting to early September. However, Parliament President Elzbieta Witek of the ruling PiS party decided, amid protest by the opposition, to repeat the vote. This was won by the government coalition with the support of the anti-system party Kukiz 15, which the opposition shouts like “crooks, crooks!” acknowledged.
The vote on the media law then ended with 228 yes to 216 no votes. The opposition has questioned the legality of the new law and accused the government of buying votes for the vote. The government had previously lost four votes in the 460-seat lower house on Wednesday – more than ever since it came to power in 2015.
“The parliamentary majority, which is stuck together with the mud of corruption and blackmail, is crumbling,” wrote former EU Council President Donald Tusk, who is acting head of the opposition Civic Platform (PO), on Twitter. This could go on for a while, but the coalition was no longer able to govern the country.
Polish government controls public television
The law aims to prohibit companies outside Europe from owning more than 49 percent of Polish media companies. According to critics, the law is aimed at TVN, which is part of the US group Discovery through a holding company registered in the Netherlands. This could force the US media group Discovery to sell the majority of its shares in the government-critical private broadcaster TVN.
Critics see this as a violation of the principle of media freedom. The news channel TVN24 represents a line that is critical of the PiS. Protests against the project therefore took place in several Polish cities on Tuesday evening.
The government already has complete control over the public television broadcaster TVP, which has become the propaganda organ of the PiS, as well as much of the regional press.
Government coalition collapsed in dispute over law
The draft law on the controversial media law was one of the triggers for the deep rift between Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s PiS and its junior partner, the Understanding party. The coalition broke on Tuesday. The Understanding party withdrew from the government alliance after Morawiecki recalled its chairman Jaroslaw Gowin as vice head of government.
In the past few months, tensions between Gowin’s party and the PiS had increased. The occasion was, among other things, planned tax increases, which the vice head of government rejected. Gowin also criticized the planned new media law, which he believes violates the principle of media freedom. In this context he also warned of a conflict with the ally USA.
However, the departure of the Understanding party from the coalition with the PiS party led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski does not mean the end of the national-conservative government for the time being. After the withdrawal of its junior partner, the PiS is now dependent on the support of MPs from other parties from the right-wing spectrum – as was the case with the vote on the media law.
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