Polish Minister of Culture and Heritage Protection, Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz, announced that he would initiate liquidation proceedings against public media outlets. “In connection with the decision of the President of Poland to suspend funding for public media, I have decided to initiate liquidation proceedings against the limited liability companies of Polish Television, Polish Radio and the PAP News Agency,” Sienkiewicz’s tweet said. Wednesday.
According to the minister, subjecting public media companies to liquidation procedures will enable their necessary transfer and prevent the layoff of employees, which will happen due to a lack of funds. He added that the procedure could be suspended at any time.
Citing a parliamentary resolution and the Commercial Companies Act, Sienkewicz last week fired the CEOs of Polish public media and appointed others in their place, as well as creating new supervisory boards.
The Prime Minister of the new Polish government, Donald Tusk, was appointed last week He saidHowever, the new Polish budget does not yet include operational support for public media, because the state press in its current state does not deserve funding from taxpayers' pockets.
President Andrzej Duda and the Law and Justice Party, allied with Viktor Orbán, described the method of exchanging people as violating the law. The National Media Council, which oversees Polish public media and was founded in 2016, with a majority of members nominated by PiS, on Tuesday elected its own executive director to lead public television.
Marcin Mastaleric, Chief of Staff of Head of State Andrzej Duda, said: Sienkiewicz's move proves the complete impotence of the ruling forces, after they did not find any legal way to replace the management of the companies that manage public media.
In mid-December, the Polish Constitutional Court issued a preliminary injunction requiring companies to refrain from liquidating public media outlets. The Council issued the measure in response to a petition submitted by representatives of the opposition Law and Justice Party regarding public media. The judicial body set the agenda to discuss this matter on January 16.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced in his press conference on Wednesday afternoon: Due to the head of state’s veto, his government is preparing another draft of the media supplementary budget law, and a new media law is also being prepared. Public media will be paid from budget reserves, not from government bonds, as originally planned.
The new CEO of the People's Action Party, Wojciech Surmach, has not yet signed his resignation. Former Culture Minister Piotr Glinski announced on Tuesday evening that Surmach had sent a letter to five hundred foreign journalists, in which he described that the current government was “illegally trying to take over the PAP news agency, intimidate free media and journalists in Poland.” .
However, in a statement issued on Tuesday evening, Marek Blonski, the new Director General appointed by Sienkiewicz, accused PiS representatives of intimidating journalists, who are on duty in rotation at the PAP headquarters in the name of inspections carried out within the scope of their powers.
Due to previous distorted and openly biased coverage by Polish public media during the election campaign, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe According to his report, the ruling party had tailwinds so strong that they “undermined the democratic separation of state and party.” After the elections, which were presented and explained in detail on telex, Marcin Wolski, one of the most important TVP presenters, exploded because they had made more crude propaganda than in the 1970s. [a kommunizmus alatt].
