The opposition Law and Justice will fight plans to ditch the licence fee for public TV and radio, and fund media from taxation.

“The mission carried out by the public media cannot be measured or weighed.  You cannot describe it in an act or put a value on it”, Elżbieta Kruk (Law and Justice - PiS), former head of the National Radio and TV Council told Polish Radio 3 on Wednesday.

Elżbieta Kruk told the radio that none of the European states questioned the rationale behind the radio and TV licence and pointed out that the European Commission believed that public media should be financed from licence fees. 

She said she could not understand the Civic Platform’s (PO) initiative aiming to abolish the licence and accused the party of contributing to the misconceptions about the radio and TV among Polish society.

Kruk said that ways of improving its collectability should be sought and a long-term plan had to be developed to achieve that.

It is estimated that only 40 per cent of Poles pay radio and TV licence fees on a regular basis.

In the opinion of PO MP Iwona Śledzińska-Katarasińska, the fact that only 40 per cent of Poles pay the licence shows that they reject the rationale behind its existence and added that radio and TV licence fees were extremely difficult to collect.

Śledzińska-Katarasińska believes that “Polish Radio and TV are strong enough companies and there is no reason why they should be financed by senior citizens and pensioners”. 

In her opinion, the majority of the public radio and TV content is not part of a public offer.  A feasible scenario would be to fund the public media from the budgets of the ministries of culture, education and foreign affairs.

”The public mission [of the media] should be defined, evaluated and then funds for it should be looked for”, said the PO politician.