by Beata Klimkiewicz (Jagiellonian University)
The project of European Media Freedom Act (European Commission, 2022) reopened the debate about the role of PSM in the European Union. It’s Article 5 (1) postulates that public service media (PSM) are to “provide in an impartial manner a plurality of information and opinions to their audiences, in accordance with their public service mission.” For media users in Poland, these normative expectations haven’t been so obvious during the last eight years. The biggest and lasting vulnerability of PSM stood for a mechanism of political control. While political influence coloured PSM performance throughout the years following 1989, the intensity of partisanship and bias, in particular of TVP (Telewizja Polska – Polish Television) news formats has reached an unprecedented scale in 2016 – 2023.
Already before parliamentary election held on 15 October 2023, the Civic Coalition – the leading political group in the new government – postulated in its electoral programme a fundamental revamping of PSM, “depoliticization” and increase of social participation in the public media (Koalicja Obywatelska, 2023). The Sejm (the lower Chamber of the Polish Parliament) with newly elected MPs adopted a resolution on 19 December 2023 in which it called on state authorities to immediately restore constitutional order in terms of citizens’ access to reliable information and the functioning of public media as independent, objective and guided by the principle of pluralism.
The actions that followed since then hardly resemble a democratic takeover. The Minister of Culture and National Heritage Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz dismissed the heads of TVP, PR (Polskie Radio – Polish Radio) and PAP (Polska Agencja Prasowa – the Polish Press Agency) using commercial law as all these institutions are formally owned by the state treasury. Yet what commercial lawyers agreed with, human rights lawyers criticized. Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights pointed out that the government’s takeover of PSM “raises serious legal doubts” as it may violate Council of Europe’s standards (Wądolowska, 2023). The Commissioner for Human Right (Polish Ombudsman) observed that the appointment of the PSM management boards and supervisory boards directly by the government is unacceptable and it does not matter whether it is based on the provisions of commercial law (brpo.gov.pl, 2023).
Unfortunately, a complicated legal situation produced by the former government controlled by Law and Justice resembles a Gordian knot. Legal options for remedy under the rule of law and restoring status quo from before 2015 are very limited: an eventual legal amendment to the 1992 Broadcasting Act would most likely be vetoed by President Duda, linked to the Law and Justice party. Both regulatory bodies – RMN (Rada Mediów Narodowych – National Media Council) and KRRiT (Krajowa Rada Radiofonii i Telewizji – National Broadcasting Council) – are politically controlled by the former government. In addition, the legitimation of RMN created in 2016 mainly for the purpose of appointing PSM management and supervisory boards has been legally questioned for replacing with RMN important competencies of constitutionally rooted KRRiT. Given these legal circumstances, reclaiming PSM and restoring its public value seems a political mission impossible.
On 23 of December 2023, President Andrzej Duda announced his veto of the budget-related act for 2024, which included PLN 3 billion for PSM. President argued: “There can be no 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 in accordance with the law”. Minister Sienkiewicz response to this veto was fast: he put public TVP, PR and PAP into a state of liquidation explaining that these radical steps were determined by the president’s veto. It is important to add that this does not mean that public media cease to exist or are intended to do so. Once the liquidation is opened however, the mandates of the management board members expire and they lose the authority to manage the company’s affairs and represent it. The minister Sienkiewicz already signaled – that the liquidation is a way to deal with PSM crisis and it can be “reversed” or “abandoned” (money.pl, 2023).
Meanwhile, the PSM takeover resulted in a tense collision between supporters and opponents of changes. The crisis was ignited for few days in December 2023 by staging a sit-in TVP’s headquarters by some TVP’s previous anchors and MPs from the Law and Justice (PiS) party. The pro-PiS journalists also broadcast live in front of TVP’s headquarters and commented the situation live on TV Republika – a right wing internet TV channel. The TVP’s news channel TVP Info was switched off for few days, and so was TVP World – the TVP’s English channel. A new main news programme “19.30” was established at the end of 2023 to replace “Wiadomości” (The news) that has been broadcast since 1989. At that time, “Wiadomości” replaced another news service “Dziennik Telewizyjny” (TV Daily) broadcast under the communism. In this way “19.30” symbolically marked a new era of PSM claiming to restore values of professional impartiality and social inclusiveness. The new anchor Marek Czyż, a journalist of TVP Info employed until 2016 and again since 2023 explained that “No Polish citizen who finances the activities of public television has any obligation to listen to propaganda.” He also added: “Instead of propaganda soup, we want to offer you clean water”.
To conclude: the irony of these changes is that while broadly welcome as an electoral proposal and trying to reverse the damage created by the previous rulers, their proponents are now facing accusations of violating freedom of speech and media pluralism and even the rule of law. Returning to EMFA: how will European Media Board (responsible for regulatory oversight of EMFA) be prepared to deal with such situations? Is the involvement of states’ representatives enough do deal with such principal issues or perhaps there should be another mechanism developed – such a dialogue established in a multistakeholder manner including also representatives of NGOs, civil society (representing also media users) and media companies?
REFERENCES
brpo.gov.pl (2023d) Sytuacja w mediach publicznych. RPO Marcin Wiącek pisze do Ministra Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego (The situation in public media. Ombudsman Marcin Wiącek writes to the Minister of Culture and National Heritage), https://bip.brpo.gov.pl/pl/content/rpo-media-publiczne-sytuacja-potrzebna-nowelizacja-mkidn
European Commission (2022). Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a common framework for media services in the internal market (European Media Freedom Act) and amending Directive 2010/13/EU, COM(2022) 457 final, 2022/0277(COD), Brussels, 16.9.2022 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52022PC0457
Koalicja Obywatelska (2023) 100 Konkretów na 100 Dni (100 Concrete Things for 100 Days),https://100konkretow.pl/praworzadnosc/
money.pl (2023) (Media publiczne postawione w stan likwidacji. Co to oznacza? (Public media put into liquidation. What does it mean?) https://www.money.pl/gospodarka/media-publiczne-postawione-w-stan-likwidacji-co-to-oznacza-6978349936056832a.html
Wądolowska, Agnieszka (2023) Three legal views on the Polish government’s public media takeover, https://notesfrompoland.com/2023/12/26/three-legal-views-on-the-polish-governments-public-media-takeover/