EU Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Oettinger, told the German newspaper in an interview that it was “arbitrary” to dismiss a director of a news agency without providing a reason.
Advertisement
The new legislation will also see the current managers and supervisory board members of Poland’s public broadcasters fired with immediate effect.
Under the EU’s rule of law mechanism, adopted past year, the Commission can escalate pressure on a member state to amend any measure that is considered a “systemic threat” to fundamental European Union values.
The new media law, which was rushed through Poland’s two-chamber parliament last week, is now waiting only for the signature of President Andrzej Duda to be enacted.
The European Commission (EC) [official website] on Sunday expressed its intentions to debate Poland’s new law on control of state-run media after Warsaw seized control of public broadcasters.
The conservative Law and Justice party took office in November and quickly embarked on a campaign of making major changes to legislation, leading to condemnation from the opposition and some European Union leaders.
PiS party chief Jaroslaw Kaczynski defended the media reforms, the EU Observer reported.
Under the new law, senior figures in public radio and television will in future be appointed – and sacked – by the treasury minister, and no longer through contests by the National Broadcasting Council.
Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski told Germany’s top-selling Bild daily his government wanted to “heal” the country after the previous government’s leftist agenda that had “nothing to do with traditional, Polish values”.
Tomasz Lis, one of Poland’s most recognised journalists and the host of a prime-time political talk show on TVP, Polish Television, the publically owned broadcasting network, quit in protest over the media law saying “nobody closes the mouths of Poles; nobody closes my mouth”.
The alliance is reluctant to permanently station troops in central Europe, with some states wary of violating a 1997 NATO-Russia agreement on the size of forces the alliance can have in former Warsaw Pact countries, of which Poland is one.
The court now needs a two-thirds majority to issue a ruling, rather than by a simple majority as before, and 13 of its 15 judges must be present for the most contentious cases, up from nine.
Advertisement
The conservative drift in Poland, which PiS says reflects the nation’s desire to maintain its Catholic identity and not be watered down by EU’s liberal influence, has triggered mass protest in the country.
