Poland's new government liquidates public media
For years, Poland's public media have acted as the mouthpiece of the national conservative PiS party. But since the change of government, a different wind has been blowing in Warsaw. The new Prime Minister Tusk wants to dissolve the companies. However, there will not be a wave of redundancies.
Donald Tusk's new Polish government wants to formally dissolve the public media, but keep the jobs. "Following the decision by Poland's president to suspend funding for public media, I have decided to put TVP, Polish Radio and the PAP news agency into liquidation," wrote Culture Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz on the X platform. This would ensure the continued functioning of these media and allow their restructuring to continue.
With this step, the dispute between the new and old government camps over the public media has entered the next round. Last week, Sienkiewicz fired the entire management of the public broadcasters in one fell swoop. The Tusk government accuses the media of spreading party propaganda in recent years under the now voted out national-conservative PiS government. International organizations had also criticized the one-sided reporting of the public media in Poland.
For example, the non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) stated in 2020 that one-sided reporting and "hate speech" were commonplace in the state media in Poland. The state media had been turned into "government propaganda mouthpieces". In its 2023 report, the organization noted that the PiS government was also increasingly trying to bring private media under its control.
On Saturday, Poland's President Andrzej Duda, who himself comes from the ranks of the PiS, vetoed a law passed by Tusk's government that provided for the subsidization of public broadcasters with the equivalent of 690 million euros. Duda justified his move by stating that this was a circumvention of the constitution and a breach of constitutional principles. He demanded that the public media must first be thoroughly restored in accordance with the law.
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The decision to liquidate the public media companies by Donald Tusk's new Polish government sparked controversy, as international organizations like Reporters Without Borders had previously criticized the media for acting as the PiS government's propaganda mouthpiece. Despite the planned liquidation, Tusk's government intends to keep the existing jobs in these media organizations for the continuation of their restructuring.
Source: www.ntv.de
