By Anna Koper and Joanna Plucinska
WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland’s parliament passed a media bill on Friday that critics say aims to silence a news channel critical of the government, in an unexpected move that will stoke concern over media freedom and reopen a diplomatic dispute with the United States.
Critics say the legislation will affect the ability of news channel TVN24, owned by U.S. media company Discovery Inc to operate because it tightens the rules around foreign ownership of media in Poland.
The vote sours relations with the United States, Poland’s most powerful ally, at a time of heightened tension in eastern Europe over an increasingly assertive Russia.
Lawmakers had not been scheduled to vote on the bill, but after a committee convened at short notice to discuss the issue it ended up on the agenda and was voted through in a matter of minutes.
The bill must be now signed by President Andrzej Duda to become law. The president, an ally of the government, has previously said that takeovers of foreign-owned media groups should take place on market terms and not with forced solutions, in a sign he could use his power to veto the bill.
“The United States is extremely disappointed with today’s adoption of the media law by the Polish Parliament,” the U.S. charge d’affaires in Warsaw, Bix Aliu, said on Twitter, calling on Duda to “protect freedom of speech and economic activity”.
Opposition lawmakers said the manner in which the committee was convened was illegal and breached democratic standards.
Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus, deputy head of the committee and a member of the opposition Left grouping, said members had been told to attend by text message 24 minutes before the sitting, when rules state they should be informed three days before.
FOREIGN OWNERSHIP
TVN24’s parent, TVN, is owned by Discovery Inc via a firm registered in the Netherlands in order to get around a ban on non-European firms owning more than 49% of Polish media companies. The bill passed by parliament on Friday would prevent this workaround.
The management board of TVN Grupa Discovery called the vote “an unprecedented attack on the free media” and said in a statement the company was “determined to defend their investments in Poland”.
The ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) has long argued that foreign media groups have too much influence in Poland, distorting public debate. PiS says the bill aims to stop countries like Russia or China gaining influence over Polish media.
PiS lawmaker Joanna Lichocka said in a statement, “The rule limiting non-European capital in the media is in line with European law and is valid in many EU countries. This rule has been in force in Poland for years – the amendment seals it up and makes it impossible to circumvent it.”
Critics say that moves against foreign media groups seek to limit media freedom and are part of an increasingly authoritarian agenda that has already put Warsaw at loggerheads with Brussels over LGBT rights and over changes to the judiciary that the EU says undermine the independence of courts.
(Reporting by Alan Charlish, Anna Koper, Pawel Florkiewicz, Joanna Plucinska, Justyna Pawlak; Writing by Alan Charlish; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Frances Kerry)
