A meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on Culture and Media is underway this morning, debating the draft law on funding public media, as put forward by the ruling Civic Platform party.
The media bill, which has caused heated debate in Poland, aims to abolish the radio and TV licence fee in favour of direct financing from the state budget. It also intends to limit the role of the National Broadcasting Council. If the law is approved by parliament, the managing boards of state broadcasters TVP and Polskie Radio will be dismissed.
A similar draft law was vetoed by the late president Lech Kaczynski.
The opposition Law and Justice party - which, in alliance with the left wing SLD party - currently dominates the board of directors in both TVP and Polskie Radio public broadcasters - opposes the media bill because it does not define clearly how the media would be financed.
Civic Platform’s coalition partner the Polish Peasants’ Party has already announced that it will support a rival civic bill representing artists such as film directors and programme makers, instead of the one proposed by Civic Platform.
Deputy prime minister Waldemar Pawlak (PSL) a member of the two-party ruling coalition, believes that Civic Platform should not strive for total dominance in public media now that the party has both prime minister and presidential offices. Pawlak told Polish Radio this morning that all four parliamentary parties should reflect on the project and find a compromise.
Pawlak said that funding for public media should be either from subscription through the license fee or directly from taxes – but whichever solution is chosen it “should be permanent”, and not ad hoc. (pg/mg)
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