Unlock Editor’s Digest for free
FT editor Roula Khalaf has chosen her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Saturday he would veto a bill that is part of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s budget, following an escalating conflict between the country’s rival political parties over media regulations.
Duda said he would aim to block Tusk’s plan to overhaul Polish public broadcaster TVP, saying the 2024 budget would contain “a blatant violation of the constitution and the principles of the democratic rule of law.” He added that he couldn’t forgive it.
Tusk, who took office last week, pledged during his election campaign to shut down public media companies, accusing them of spreading propaganda and lies about him from the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) group. is. He spoke of “healing” public media rather than dismantling it.
Duda’s veto plan was announced on social media platform X. This will be Tusk’s first major political test since he led a three-party coalition to victory over PiS in parliamentary elections in October, after eight years in power.
Sławomir Dudek, founder of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a Polish think tank, said that by threatening Tusk’s budget, Duda was creating an “unprecedented situation in which a president attempts to influence the finances for which the government is responsible.” I wrote to X that I was producing it.
Dudek said the uproar was “not about the media.”
“This subverts the budget process and prevents the new administration from meeting the deadline by the end of January,” he said. Prime Minister Tusk must approve the final version of the budget in parliament by the end of next month.
As president, Duda has significant veto power over legislation. He cannot veto the final budget bill outright, but he can block a spending bill that Tusk introduced this week that would also reallocate media funding. Tusk must work with Duda until the next presidential election in 2025, when Duda, who was PiS’s presidential candidate, will complete his second and final term.
Prime Minister Tusk initially published a draft budget that did not include specific state funding for TVP, but the latest version debated in parliament on Friday includes 3 billion zlotys for the Ministry of Culture, which can be used for state television and radio. It was included. This is consistent with his TVP’s recent grant levels.
Earlier this week, new Culture Minister Tusk sacked the heads of state television, radio and news agencies. Hours later, TVP’s new boss took the news channel off the air, which Mr Tusk has long accused of becoming a mouthpiece for PiS.
The closure sparked a fierce backlash from PiS, including a sit-in at TVP headquarters initially led by PiS party leader Jarosław Kaczynski.
Kaczynski and other PiS leaders said that by taking on the TVP, Tusk was attacking democracy and destroying media pluralism. PiS also claims that Mr. Tusk is circumventing Polish law because changes to the TVP require approval from the National Broadcasting Council, which Mr. Tusk claims is a tool of PiS. They are blaming it for working.
Duda intervened in the TVP dispute earlier this week, warning Tusk that he needed to show “respect for Poland’s legal order” by siding with PiS.
Mr Duda said on Saturday that he would draw up his own alternative budget proposal and submit it to Parliament after Christmas. The bill would also include measures “related to teacher pay increases and other spending,” he said.
Tusk’s budget proposal includes a 30% increase in teacher salaries, which was one of his campaign promises. Mr Tusk’s budget is expected to increase salaries and other benefits by 20% for other public sector employees.