Polish legislators introduced a bill on Wednesday (August 11). The opposition claimed that the bill was designed to silence US news channels that criticized the government. This led to a quick condemnation by the United States, one of Warsaw’s most important allies.
Washington has warned that failure to renew the license of Discovery’s TVN24 news channel could jeopardize future investments in Poland, while opposition politicians have denounced the bill as an attack on media freedom.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Brinken said that Washington was “deeply disturbed” by the passage of the bill by the lower house of parliament. He said that the bill is aimed at Poland’s highest-rated independent news station and is also one of the largest US investments in the country.
“The massive U.S. business investment in Poland has tied our prosperity together and strengthened our collective security,” he said. “This draft legislation threatens media freedom and may undermine Poland’s strong investment environment,” Brinken said in a statement.
We are troubled by the legislation passed in Poland that severely restricts the return of Holocaust survivors and owners of confiscated property during the communist era, and the drafted legislation will severely weaken media freedom. Our common values are our common security.
— Secretary Anthony Blinken (@SecBlinken) August 11, 2021
The media bill will strengthen the ban on companies outside the European Economic Area that control the Polish Broadcasting Corporation. It passed with 228 votes in favor, 216 votes against and 10 abstentions, and will now enter the Senate, the upper house of parliament.
The spokesperson of the Polish government, Piotr Muller, stated that Poland is introducing rules similar to those of other EU countries, adding: “We have the right to regulate capital issues in a way that the Polish Parliament deems appropriate.”
TVN24’s parent company, TVN, is owned by the US-based media group Discovery Inc through a company registered in the Netherlands to bypass the ban on non-European companies that own more than 49% of Polish media companies.
The bill will prohibit this arrangement and will appear shortly before the deadline for the renewal of the TVN24 license, which will expire on September 26.
In a tweet, Congressman Gezegorz Schetina, from the largest opposition civic platform, called Wednesday’s vote “an attack on freedom and an attack on the media independent of the government.”
Discovery called it “an attack on core democratic principles such as freedom of speech and media independence, directly discriminating against TVN and Discovery.”
phosphorusProperty Restitution Act
Brinken also called on Poland not to continue legislation, because these legislation are expected to make it more difficult for Jews to recover property seized by the Nazi German occupiers during the Holocaust and kept in the custody of the post-war communist rulers.
“We are deeply concerned that the Polish parliament passed legislation today that strictly restricts the procedures for Holocaust survivors and their families and other Jewish and non-Jewish property owners to obtain compensation for property erroneously confiscated in the communist era in Poland,” Brinken said. .
The bill has been passed by the House of Commons and passed the Senate, which means it will now be submitted to the President for signing into law.
“We urge the President (Andrzej) Duda not to sign the bill into law, or to submit the bill to the Polish Constitutional Court based on the powers granted to him as president,” Brinken said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid stated that the bill “damages both the memory of the Holocaust and the rights of the victims.”
Brinken stated that Poland is an important ally of NATO and that the alliance is “based on a shared commitment to common democratic values and prosperity.”
He added: “These legislations run counter to the principles and values represented by modern democracies. We urge the Polish government to demonstrate not only in words but also in deeds its commitment to these common principles.”
Earlier in the evening, Polish opposition lawmakers stated that they had successfully passed a motion to postpone the meeting, indicating that the ruling United Right Alliance could not obtain a majority of seats.
However, when Speaker Elzbieta Witek said that the vote must be repeated, joy turned into anger because she forgot to specify a date to postpone the meeting. “What you do is absolutely illegal,” said Borys Budka, a citizen platform lawmaker.
Jaroslaw Sachajko of the Kukiz 15 party does not belong to the ruling coalition, but supports some of its policies. He said that the party’s four lawmakers initially voted incorrectly for the opposition motion.
