Poland’s dispute over control of state media deepened on Tuesday as a body dominated by the former government appointed a new television chief, even though the current administration had already appointed another person to the post, Euractiv reports.
The Donald Tusk-led coalition government began reorganising state media immediately after it came to power this month. The Law and Justice Party (PiS) met the process negatively, arguing that the new government bypassed normal parliamentary procedure in carrying them out.
Its lawmakers staged protests and sit-ins outside state media headquarters, and President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally, denounced the reforms as “anarchy.”
PiS MP Joanna Lichocka said on Tuesday that Poland’s National Media Council (RMN) had appointed Michal Adamczyk as chief executive of state broadcaster TVP. The RMN was formed in 2016, when the PiS party was in power, and was charged with the responsibility of appointing the leadership of state media.
Adamczyk was one of the most recognisable faces of TVP’s news broadcasts, which PiS opponents believed were propagandistic in nature. Lichocka wrote on X:
(Adamczyk’s) main task is to restore corporate governance and stop activities to the detriment of the company. We hope that the culture minister will stop breaking the law.
Earlier, Minister of Culture Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz dismissed the supervisory boards of public television and radio, as well as the state news agency PAP. The new supervisory boards, in turn, appointed new management. In the case of TVP, the role of executive director went to journalist Tomasz Sigut.
The matter was further complicated by the fact that on Monday the former supervisory board of TVP, which did not accept his dismissal, appointed former PiS MP Maciej Lopinski as chief executive. Sienkiewicz said on Monday that Lopinski’s appointment was “legally invalid because it was made by a non-existent body”.
