WARSAW, December 31 President of Poland Andrzej Duda in his New Year did not mention Ukraine in his address, but criticized the ruling majority.
Giving his traditional New Year's address, Duda never mentioned Ukraine directly. Only speaking about the need to strengthen the Polish army, he stated that “there is a war going on beyond our eastern border.”
At the same time, he criticized the government for its actions to gain control over state media, accusing the ruling majority of violating the constitution.
«»The authorities can reform public media, but this must be done in accordance with the law. I have always been and am open to such a discussion of legal changes. However, on my part there will be no agreement to violate the constitution, and with this situation we are now Unfortunately, we are dealing with this,» he said.
«»We are faced with a new situation in Polish politics. The President and the government are from different political camps. This is normal in a democracy, but in a democracy one must respect the constitution, the principles of the rule of law and good political customs. Unfortunately, in recent days the government coalition, trying to take over public media, violated these rules,» he added.
Duda said that “for the first time in free Poland since 1989, an attempt was made to forcibly seize state media.”
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk immediately responded to Duda’s words in an ironic tone. “The year 2023 is full of miracles. The last of them is the words from the president’s address about the need to defend the constitution,” he wrote on platform X.
On Sunday, the news channel of Polish state television tvp.info resumed broadcasting after a ten-day break with a new line-up of presenters.
Earlier, the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of Poland dismissed the chairmen of the boards of Polish Television, Polish Radio and the Polish News Agency, as well as their supervisory boards. At the same time, the minister appointed new supervisory boards that will form new boards of public media outlets. These decisions were not recognized by the Law and Justice party, which, despite joining the opposition, continued to control the TV channel at the expense of loyal journalists. Then, instead of the tvp.info news channel of Polish television, they began broadcasting the tvp1 channel, and then tvp.polonia, which mainly shows feature films.
Recently, Polish Minister of Culture and National Heritage Bartolomew Sienkiewicz announced that he had decided to liquidate state media due to the cessation of their funding. Last week, Polish President Andrzej Duda vetoed a budget bill that would have allocated 3 billion zlotys (about $770 million) to finance state media.
Later it was clarified that the decision to open a liquidation procedure would not lead to the fact that the media would cease their activities, but only the legal entity would change.