Polish President Lech Kaczynski has announced he will say ‘no’ to the Amended Media Bill proposed by the ruling coalition.
The President is likely to veto the amendment to the Media Bill it its current shape, as he objects to the Civic Platform’s (PO) view on how to depoliticise public media in Poland.
‘There is no other way under the circumstances,’ Kaczynski told private RMF FM radio station this morning.
‘If we are to revive the structure whereby the government appoints the head of public television and calls it de-politicisation, words simply fail me,’ Kaczynski said, implying that the Amended Media Bill would grant the government full control over state-owned TV.
‘They could show [viewers] a black wall and call it white,’ he said.
President Kaczynski rejected the allegations quoted by RMF FM that sympathies of the public TV, currently managed by Andrzej Urbanski, formerly Head of the Presidential Chancellery, lay with the President and his twin brother’s party Law and Justice (PiS).
The President said he tended to avoid watching the main news on public TV on Saturdays and Sundays not to get ‘too upset’.
‘That’s how pro-PiS and pro-President [the Polish public TV] is’, he commented.
The amendments proposed by the government to the current law aim at limiting the competence of the National Radio and TV Council (KRRiT), two out of five members of which are appointed by the President himself, in favour of the Electronic Communication Office controlled by the government.
The amendments to the Media Bill will be debated by MPs on Friday.
TV licensing fees go to waste, says Komorowski
Meanwhile, Speaker of the Polish Parliament Bronislaw Komorowski told Polish Radio One this morning that although radio and TV licensing fees are a good solution to finance the public media, the revenue from the fees are often wasted.
He argued that public media should concentrate on their public mission, while currently some of the parties in Poland believe that this mission comprises only of providing political information.
Komorowski commented on an unprecedented appeal by the heads of Poland’s three largest television stations to sustain radio and TV licensing and to enable tax deductions in connection with the fees. He said that the broadcasters should try to convince MPs of this idea. Komorowski is to meet with the three television stations’ heads next week.
Speaker Komorowski said that it is doubtful whether parliament will give consent to the idea to deduct the licensing fees from people’s tax burden, as current law allows this solution only in the case of charity contributions. He also argued that the majority of Poles are in favour of an option to release old pensioners from the payment.
Currently only those over 75 are exempt from paying the fee.
The government intends to abolish radio and television licence fees and instead introduce ‘Public Mission Fund’.
The amendment to media law, especially concerning financing of public media, has been causing heated debate in Poland since the Donald Tusk led government came to power after last autumn’s general election. (mj/jm) (photo - Jakub Szymczuk)