Poland’s new government dislikes critical media, vegetarians and cyclists

SINCE parliamentary elections in October, Poland’s far-right Law and Justice party (PiS) has controlled the country’s presidency and both chambers of parliament. It has spent its first two months in power tightening its grip over the security services, the constitutional tribunal and the civil service. Now it is purging the country’s public media. On December 31st parliament ignored a letter of concern from the European Union and passed an amendment to Poland’s media law that sacks the management of the public television and radio broadcasters, TVP1 and Polskie Radio, and empowers the treasury minister to appoint their successors. Meanwhile, as Poland moves closer to Hungarian-style illiberal democracy, the European Commission is warning that there may be consequences.

TVP’s directors resigned the night the law was passed, before it came into force. Poland’s Radio 1 has protested by playing the Polish national anthem every other hour since January 1st, alternating it with the EU’s anthem, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”. The country’s centrist and liberal media outlets condemned the new law, along with several other illiberal changes under the new government. The cover of the Polish edition of Newsweek featured a smashed eagle with the caption “The rape of Poland”.

Pro-government media welcomed the new law, which PiS officials say is an effort to depoliticise the airwaves. But a recent report by Poland’s national broadcasting council found that the most partisan outlets were pro-PiS ones, such as Telewizja Republika and TV Trwam (run by Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, an ultra-conservative Catholic priest). TVP1’s news programme was deemed one of the most balanced.

PiS, however, is tired of criticism. “If the media imagine that for the next few weeks they will be absorbing Poles’ attention with criticism of our changes or policies, then that has to be stopped,” said Ryszard Terlecki, head of PiS’s parliamentary caucus. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the party’s leader, blames Polish media outlets “in German hands”. The Warsaw branch of the PiS-friendly Association of Polish Journalists condemned “using the foreign media” to spread one-sided and unreliable news, calling it “unauthorised interference in Poland’s internal affairs”. The idea of an apolitical media is a “harmful idealised myth” that makes it harder to govern, wrote Krystyna Pawlowicz, an outspoken PiS member of parliament, in an op-ed for Radio Maryja, Father Rydzyk’s radio station.

The new law is just the start, according to its authors. The next step will be to turn the public media into “national media”, said Krzysztof Czabanski, the deputy minister responsible for media reform. Yet the problem runs deeper. Poland lacks a clear notion of the “public media”, says Jan Zielonka, a professor of European politics at Oxford University. Under communism, the state media simply gave a megaphone to the ruling party. Many politicians today would like a similar arrangement.

The Polish government’s efforts to defend the new law have only made things worse, creating an impression of amateurism. In a January 3rd interview with Bild, a German newspaper, Witold Waszczykowski, the foreign minister, condemned Poland’s previous centre-right government for pursuing a “left-wing” political agenda: “As if the world, in a Marxist fashion, were destined to evolve only in one direction—towards a new mix of cultures and races, a world of bicyclists and vegetarians.”

Poland ranked 18th in the 2015 World Press Freedom Index, ahead of Britain, France and the United States. Now it has come under fire from international free-speech groups, including Reporters Without Borders, which publishes the index. On Sunday Günther Oettinger, the EU’s commissioner for the digital economy, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, a German weekly, that the Polish law may infringe on freedom of expression. He said the country should be monitored, using a rule-of-law mechanism adopted by the EU in 2014.

On January 13th the commission will meet to discuss Poland. Mr Czabanski claims the new media law does not break EU rules. He must hope the EU agrees. If Poland is found to have violated European principles, its voting rights could be suspended.