Duda vetoed: Poland’s president stops controversial media law

Duda vetoed
Poland’s president stops controversial media law

The controversial media law is passed in Poland a week before Christmas. It stipulates that non-European investors are not allowed to hold majorities in Polish media companies. Now President Duda is preventing the entry into force. But it could be outvoted again.

Polish President Andrzej Duda has vetoed an internationally controversial new broadcasting law designed to limit foreign influence on the media. According to the PAP agency, the 49-year-old said he refused to sign it in this form. The parliament in Warsaw passed the law shortly before Christmas. Both the EU Commission and the US government had warned of dangers to media freedom because of the law.

The national conservative Duda appealed to the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, to find more suitable solutions to limit the participation of foreign companies in the media market. The Sejm could overturn the president’s veto with a three-fifths majority. The national conservative government in Warsaw had argued that the law would protect the Polish media landscape from potentially hostile actors. Specifically, the proposal stipulated that broadcasting licenses may in future only be issued to foreigners if they have their headquarters or domicile in the European Economic Area. In addition, the licensee must not be dependent on someone who is headquartered or resident outside of it. Critics accused the PiS government of wanting to use the law to silence the government-critical news channel TVN24.

TVN24 is the news channel of the Polish private broadcaster TVN, which belongs to the US media group Discovery. The law would have banned non-European companies from owning more than 49 percent of Polish media companies. If the law went into effect, Discovery would have been forced to sell the majority of its shares in TVN.

Duda: Citizens don’t want another argument

In his criticism, Duda referred, among other things, to the trade and economic relations treaty of 1990 between the USA and Poland. Duda emphasized that he had also dealt extensively with questions of media pluralism and freedom of expression. He also referred to the increasing polarization of society in Poland. “Most of my compatriots, most of my fellow citizens, do not want any more arguments,” he said, according to the PAP agency.

Opposition leader Donald Tusk welcomed Duda’s veto. The President’s decision shows “that pressure is working,” said the former EU Council President. There had been massive protests against the law in Poland beforehand. The US and the EU also sharply criticized the law. A spokesman for the EU Commission in Brussels described it as a “serious threat to freedom of the press and pluralism in Poland”. The Discovery group warned against undermining the “values ​​that bound Europe and Poland”. Washington was “extremely disappointed” with the adoption of the law in parliament, said the charge of the US Embassy, ​​Bix Aliu. “We expect President Duda to act in accordance with his previous statements to protect freedom of speech and the free market economy.”

The government in Warsaw has been pilloried for years because of its handling of the judiciary and the media, as well as its stance on sexual minorities in the EU. The PiS already controls the public TV broadcaster TVP as well as a large part of the regional press. Since the party came to power in Poland, the country has fallen 46 places on the world press freedom index. Poland is now ranked 64th out of 180 on the index.

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