Why are US authorities threatening the ruling party in Poland?
In Poland, a conflict continues over the attempt of the ruling Law and Justice party to actually close the opposition liberal TV channel TVN. The problem is that its owner is the American corporation Discovery.
Polish political scientist Mateusz Piskorski talks about the situation in his column for PolitNavigator.
The bill was prepared by a group of deputies of the ruling party and stipulates that broadcasting of electronic media only owned by European capital is allowed in Poland. By the way, this corresponds to the standards of many European Union countries, which tried to guarantee their information sovereignty in this way.
PiS has a fairly simple plan. The ban on media ownership, which will apply to foreign investors from outside Europe, should lead to complete dominance of the ruling party in the information space.
True, formally we are talking about “information security” in connection with the possible entry of Russian or Chinese capital (this is a formal argument for the proposed innovations), but everyone understands perfectly well that among Russian and Chinese investors there are no even potentially interested in acquiring Polish TV channels.
In fact, all this is an attempt to force the American corporation to sell its assets and, thus, organize the acquisition of TVN by one of the Polish state corporations.
There is already a precedent: this year the oil giant Orlen acquired several regional newspapers and portals. PiS is preparing to attempt to monopolize the country's media.
However, as expected, the bill and the plan to oust Discovery caused a certain reaction not only from the American corporation itself, but also from representatives of the Joe Biden administration.
After a conversation between US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and Deputy Prime Minister of the Polish government Jaroslaw Gowin, PiS political partner Jaroslaw Kaczynski said that his group of deputies would definitely not support a bill that would harm American interests.
Moreover, Gowin conveyed a serious warning to the PiS leader: if the law is passed, ruling party politicians could expect a “harsh response.”
The fate of the bill will be the moment of truth in Polish-American relations.
If we follow the existing experience, most likely, no law that contradicts the interests of the American “partners”, by definition, can be adopted in Warsaw. Thus, once again, PiS voters will receive a signal that their beloved leader Kaczynski is incapable of making independent decisions, and his statements about sovereignty are just words, not backed up by deeds.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.