Polish president vetos media budget after new gov’t takes state TV channel off the air

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Polish President Andrej Duda, an ally of the outgoing right-wing populist party Law and Justice (PiS), announced that he will veto the public-media-related parts of the 2024 budget of new Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government, on Saturday, 23 December.

Duda, in power for the next 18 months, tweeted: “I decided to veto the budget-related act for 2024, which includes PLN 3bn for public media. There cannot be consent to this in view of the flagrant violation of the Constitution and the principles of a democratic state of law. Public media must first be repaired reliably and legally.

“An attempt to finance public media using a budget-related act (by parliamentary majority) is unacceptable in the current situation. In my bill, all other budget expenditures – including teacher salary increases – will be retained,” Duda wrote.

Tusk accused of adopting PiS tactics

Duda’s announcement came as Poland’s new Tusk-led government, which recently defeated PiS in a national election, sparked controversy by fulfilling a campaign promise by taking off the air for several days the 24-hour state news service TVP, seen by many as a PiS propaganda tool.

The directors of TVP, Polish Radio and state news agency PAP, were fired on Tuesday, 19 December, as the new Tusk-led coalition dismissed TVP as a propaganda channel that had been aligned with PiS.

Tusk’s overhaul of TVP’s leadership is seen as part of a broader initiative to restore media impartiality and the rule of law in Poland. His administration is implementing its ambitious reform programme while contending with a strong opposition presence and a presidential veto until 2025.

While Tusk called the closure a necessary step to depoliticise public broadcasting, PiS questioned the legality and potential of one biased media being replaced with another. Legal experts and human rights advocates warned that the reform could perpetuate a cycle of political control over media with each new government.

PiS’s recently ousted prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki said: “They are aware that they are acting illegally, but they are acting using brute force. This action is absolutely illegal.”

Orban’s policy head invokes Soros

Balazs Orban, the political director of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a long-time ally of Morawiecki, tweeted: “Shocked to see the left-wing takeover orchestrated by the (US-Hungarian liberal billionaire donor George) Soros empire in Poland.

“Public media beheaded, police forces seizing the HQ, resulting in injury to a right-wing politician amid protests. Chaos is evident as new PM Donald Tusk prioritises media restructuring within a mere week in office,” added Balazs Orban, who is not related to the Hungarian premier.

The Hungarian politician was referring to reports that PiS MP Joanna Borowiak was injured in a scuffle in the TVP building, after which an ambulance was called to the scene, as PiS MP Dariusz Matecki wrote on social media.

British professor weighs up ends and means

When PiS took power in 2015 it forced TVP journalists to reapply for their own jobs, favouring party supporters in the outcome. Subsequently TVP was accused of bias and character assassination attempts on opposition figures, including Tusk, whose move this week followed a parliamentary resolution on the need for media impartiality.

Stanley Bill, a professor of Polish studies at the University of Cambridge, tweeted: “The aim of replacing the current boards is justified. But what about the means? The government is effectively using a legal loophole to get around various procedures for appointing the boards. Lawyers will debate the details of this approach, but in essence it looks like a continuation of PiS’s modus operandi.

However he noted: “Legislation could be vetoed by (Duda) leaving a hard choice between crude effectiveness and probity. The government chose the former: appeasing supporters and removing a source of constant attacks.”

Bill added that the “chaotic takeover of public media highlights the difficulty Poland’s new government faces in repairing captured public institutions without resorting to the same dubious methods that degraded them in the first place”.