A Polish MEP has demanded action from Brussels over alleged attempts by his country’s government to restrict independent media.
Maciej Wąsik, a Polish opposition Conservative PiS MEP, has asked the European Commission to take action after reports emerged that the Donald Tusk-led Polish Government has been denying Conservative independent channel TV Republika access to its press conferences.
He told Polish portal Nezależna.pl that he was awaiting a response from the Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders to a parliamentary question over the issue.
In his request to the EC, Wąsik argued that the Tusk government was violating the rights of independent media by refusing to allow journalists from TV Republika to attend government press conferences.
“This restricts criticism and media freedom,” he said.
In his submission, he reminded the EC that the principle of media freedom, pluralism and free access to information were among Europe’s primary values and therefore asked the EC to look into the matter when compiling its rule-of -aw report for 2024.
Wąsik recalled how when he was a part of the previous Law and Justice (PiS) party government serving as deputy interior minister, the EC regularly “accused [Poland] of violating media freedoms, justified, among other instances, by the arrest of ‘independent journalist’ Paweł Rubtsov”.
He was referring to the fact that the European Parliament and the EC had raised the issue of the detention of Rubtsov, aka Pablo Gonzales, who in August was released to Russia as part of a prisoner swap between the US and Russia and whom the Russians had acknowledged to be a spy.
Wąsik said he hoped there would be a suitable response from Brussels.
“I hope that someone in the European Commission will hear what is happening in Poland. Perhaps MEPs will hear it, too. I don’t count on the Venice Commission suddenly arriving led by Vera Jourova, who will be questioning Tusk,” he said.
“I hope that a large part of European politicians who have been misled in the past will realise that the reality in Poland looks completely different than it was portrayed there.”
TV Republika’s ratings have soared following the arrival of journalists sacked by public TVP Info after the Tusk government’s takeover of Polish public media in December last year, while TVP Info has lost 70 per cent of its viewers over the same period.
Poland’s defence minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz appeared to make Ukraine’s European Union accession conditional on “resolving” a dispute with Poland over a Second World War atrocity. https://t.co/wAJToLloFP
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) September 3, 2024
