New media law puts Poland, US on collision course

An amendment to Poland’s media law takes aim at leading independent news channel TVN24 owned by US firm Discovery and is expected to severely harm the relations between Warsaw and Washington.

The matter will be discussed later today with Matthew G. Boyse, deputy assistant to the US Secretary of State, who is visiting Warsaw.

Last week, a group of ruling PiS party lawmakers submitted to parliament’s lower house (Sejm) a draft amendment to the radio and television broadcasting act. The proposal reads that the bill aimed at “clarifying regulations enabling the National Broadcasting Council (KRRiT) to effectively counteract the possibility of radio and television broadcasters to be taken over by any entities from outside the European Union, including entities from countries posing an immediate threat to state security.”

Article 35 – a key provision of the new bill – states that a broadcasting license in Poland may only be granted to a foreign entity whose registered office or permanent place of residence is located within the European Economic Area.

Critics suggest that the draft law is another attempt to control the domestic media because it would specifically target the broadcaster TVN – a private television station – which is owned by US firm Discovery Inc. Article 35 is crucial for prolonging the broadcasting license for Poland’s leading independent news channel TVN 24.

“This law is a declaration of war against the US because it will expropriate or at least coerce the Americans into selling a large media company which TVN undoubtedly is,” Juliusz Braun, the former head of the National Broadcasting Council and current member of the National Media Council told Onet in an interview. In his opinion, the act targets directly TVN. 

TVN‘s management board reacted to the bill on Thursday, saying it was “trying to silence us”. The broadcasting license for the TVN 24 expires on 26 September while the station applied for its license renewal a year ago.

If the amendment comes into force, TVN will lose its licence. And its American owner Discovery Inc. (or Warner Bros, if the merger with US giant Warner Media is finalised in the meantime) will have seven months to find a European or preferably Polish co-investor.

“Media in Poland should be Polish”, said Jarosław Kaczyński last summer shortly after Andrzej Duda won the presidential election. In December 2020, state-controlled refiner PKN Orlen announced it was buying the Polska Press publisher from Germany’s Verlagsgruppe Passau, the owner of 20 regional newspapers, almost 120 local weeklies and more than 500 online websites in Poland, with a total audience estimated at some 17.5 million readers. Party loyalists have been appointed to top managerial positions.

MP Marek Suski, an initiator of the draft law and trusted man of Jarosław Kaczyński, said over the weekend that the aim of the law changes was to force the Americans to sell their stake in TVN 24 to a Polish state-owned company and thus gain control of the news station.

“This is a preventive defence because it is not excluded that in a moment we would have here, for example, some Russian television,” Suski said.

The US charge d’affaires in Warsaw Bix Aliu wrote on Twitter on Thursday: “The US has been observing the TVN licensing process and the newly proposed legislation with rising concern. TVN has been an essential part of the Polish media landscape for over 20 years”.

High-ranking American diplomat Matthew G. Boyse is arriving in Warsaw on Monday and the issue will top the agenda of his visit, reported EURACTIV’s partner Gazeta Wyborcza.

European Commission Vice-President Věra Jourová tweeted: “The new draft Polish law on broadcasting concessions is yet another worrying signal for media freedom and pluralism in the country. We follow closely the situation related to TVN24 whose license has not been renewed yet.”

(Mateusz Kucharczyk | EURACTIV.pl)