The Civic Platform’s coalition ally, the Polish Peasants’ Party (PSL) has voiced “some reservations” over the proposed new media reform bill.
Deputy Speaker of the Lower House Jaroslaw Kalinowski (PSL) has said that his party’s reservations are in respect of the provisions included in Civic Platform’s draft media law regarding introduction of programming licences to be granted to TV and radio, financing the public media from VAT and a merger of Polish Television and Polish Radio at the regional level.
The reform of the way public media is funded in Poland, and the government’s desire to abolish the licence fee has met with opposition from political parties and artistic organisations in Poland.
Deputy Speaker Kalinowski told Polish Radio One Tuesday morning that a lack of agreement between the coalition allies “could be very harmful to the public media,” in Poland.
He called for a public debate and added that a lack of consensus between the two coalition partners on the final shape of the new bill would impede the public media’s development and could marginalise it compared with the dynamic development of private broadcasters.
Last week the Rzeczpospolita daily revealed the main assumptions of the new draft of the media bill prepared by the PO, including fundamental changes in the mechanisms of financing the public and private media in Poland, abolition of the radio and television licence fees and establishment of state-controlled regulators, the Fund for Public Tasks (FZP) providing financing and granting licences to public and private media, and the TV and Radio Programming Councils, compared by the daily to the Radio & TV Politburos discredited in Communist-era Poland. (mj)