In his speech at the turn of the year, Poland's right-wing nationalist President Andrzej Duda warned the new centrist government led by former EU Council President Donald Tusk against violating the constitution and the rule of law. In the televised speech and published on the presidential office's home page on Sunday evening, he primarily criticized the government's radical restructuring of public media.
The pro-European government, which has been in power since mid-December, has accused public television station TVP, Polish Radio and the PAP news agency of spreading partisan propaganda in recent years under the government of the nationalist conservative Law and Justice Party. Culture Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz sacked the entire management of media companies before Christmas.
When President Duda, who originally came from PiS itself, vetoed the Tusk government's budget plans, Sienkiewicz ordered the formal liquidation of the three media companies.
In his speech, Duda renewed his criticism, saying: “In a democratic state, the constitution, the rule of law and good political customs must be respected. Unfortunately, the ruling coalition has violated these principles in recent days in its attempt to control public media.” Firstly, for the first time in free Poland after 1989, there was an attempt to seize public media by force, the signals of some TV channels were shut down and news broadcasting stopped.
International organizations also criticized the fact that public media provided biased reporting during the PiS government's eight-year run.
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