The power struggle to control Polish state media continues at pace with the country’s culture minister announcing yesterday that he will soon liquidate the entire network. This follows threats from Polish President Andrzej Duda to cut off its public funding in response to direct meddling by Donald Tusk’s newly installed government.
Polish politics entered crisis mode last week when the recently elected liberal Tusk-led Civil Coalition government attempted an institutional purge of the public broadcaster Telewizja Polska (TVP), aiming to rid the media network of conservative sympathisers aligned with the previous PiS administration.
Uniformed police officers stormed TVP headquarters in Warsaw on December 20th as senior PiS members—including the nation’s former Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński—attempted a sitdown protest against what they view as authoritarian overreach by the Tusk regime.
The dramatic showdown has raised questions about media ownership in Poland with many PiS officials warning that the attack on the broadcaster is reminiscent of the era of Soviet control.
TVP has been intermittently off-air last week as senior officials belonging to the network were dismissed by the Tusk government in what PiS officials, as well as outside observers, have labelled a politically calculated abuse of power.
The network has earned a reputation in Poland for its strong PiS sympathies, especially during the recent October election that the party lost. Many regarded the broadcaster as the last media bastion of Polish conservatives, following a campaign of aggressive media acquisitions by progressives.
While the Tusk administration has defended the hostile takeover of TVP as essential to fighting alleged PiS authoritarianism, others in Poland and across the West have cried foul.
Professor Mieczysław Ryba, from the College of the Institute of National Remembrance–Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation, has decried the moves by the new government as an “attack on public media”, warning that the action against TVP could be the first step in a wider move against media freedom in the country.
In response to the turmoil at TVP, PiS has planned a major public demonstration on January 11th in Warsaw. MPs from various parties, including Krzysztof Szczucki, minister of education and science in the former PiS government, described the actions of the Tusk government as entirely illegal.
Since taking office last month, Tusk and his left-liberal coalition government moved swiftly to undo almost a decade of conservative rule in Poland, moving to alter the judiciary in its favour and conceding to “rule of law” demands from the European Commission by putting Warsaw under greater EU oversight.
Attention is now on PiS-aligned President Duda and the potential for his presidential veto to be used against the Tusk coalition’s upcoming budget, with the head of state already signalling his intention to block any proposals in what could create the greatest constitutional crisis in Polish post-Soviet history.
