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Controversial legislation proposes to prohibit non-European owners from holding controlling rights in Polish media companies.
After a small coalition partner announced that it would leave the government, Poland’s right-wing ruling coalition was disintegrated due to differences in legislation. It considered this to be an attack on media freedom.
The media bill, scheduled to be voted on Wednesday afternoon, will prevent non-European owners from holding controlling stakes in Polish media companies.
It is seen as an important test for the survival of the independent media in this former communist country. After six years of the populist government, the independence of the media and the judiciary has been weakened.
After the deputy prime minister, who was the leader of the Pact Party, expressed opposition to the bill and other government plans, Prime Minister Mateus Moravitsky fired him from the government on Tuesday.
The leader of the Agreement Party, Jaroslaw Gowin, has stated that he believes the legislation is an attack on media diversity.
Gowin’s party is regarded as the most moderate partner in the three-party conservative coalition that has ruled Poland since 2015, and said on Wednesday that it will officially withdraw.
The party has 13 seats in the 460-seat lower house of the lower house, and most of its politicians plan to be loyal to Gowin.
Expected vote
Polish media reported that the law and justice party (PiS), the coalition’s largest party, is trying to win some agreement members that may be shaken.
It is expected that there will still be a vote on the media amendment to the dispute center.
A government spokesman expressed confidence in its approval on Wednesday. The measure is expected to obtain the required votes from some opposition nationalist politicians.
Law and Justice has long tried to nationalize the media, claiming that the policy was for national security reasons. The party mentioned the risk that rival powers such as Russia and China might influence public debates in Poland.
The EU accuses the Polish government of legal and judicial leadership of ignoring EU democratic values.
But this 27-member group has few tools to change the course of Warsaw or Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban. Under his leadership, media diversity has been drastically reduced.
‘Review’
The bill is widely considered to silence an independent, U.S.-owned television broadcaster that exposed the government’s impropriety when the ruling party faced declining support and parliamentary elections scheduled for two years. behavior.
If passed, the legislation would require the American company Discovery Inc to sell its controlling stake in TVN, a network with many channels, operating Poland’s all-news station TVN24, and having a flagship evening watched by millions of people every day News program.
Critics say they worry that if the bill is approved, it will mark a big step away from democracy, and Lech Walesa’s solidarity movement in the 1980s fought for ideals.
“The vote to take over TVN will be a vote for anti-Western dictatorship, and the thieves are at large,” said Radek Sikorski, the former Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs. “We all know, and PiS legislators also know. I don’t think they are capable of betraying the ideals of unity so much.”
On Tuesday, dozens of Polish towns staged protests against the media amendment. Speakers expressed their concern that the abolition of TVN as an independent voice will bring back many Poles who still remember the censorship of the communist period.
“I am worried that there will be a censorship system, and with it there will be a lack of democracy, just a totalitarian country,” protester Lucyna Kiderska said in Warsaw. “Slowly, slowly, we will go back in time.”
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