The National
Broadcasting Council

The draft runs to 47 pages, of which nearly half (24 pages) is devoted to matters with no direct connection to the implementation of the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), or to the real challenges facing the market. Such a large imbalance clearly shows that the priorities of the draft's authors are not in line with the reform's stated aims. Importantly, representatives of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage cite the very provisions of EMFA to justify the need to implement the ‘Media Law’.

The scale and nature of these proposals lead to the conclusion that the real aim of the draft is to further subordinate the media market to current political interests, rather than to strengthen its independence.

The KRRiT's major reservations concern three areas to which the draft devotes disproportionate attention. These are:

• a new method of appointing the leadership of public media – despite the fact that earlier, controversial actions against these entities, which were unlawfully taken over and placed into liquidation in December 2023, have still not been accounted for;
• abolition of the subscription fee – without presenting a real, stable funding mechanism for public media that is independent of government;
• changes to the rules for appointing KRRiT members and to how the institution operates – despite the fact that the current model (based on the involvement of the Sejm, the Senate and the President of the Republic of Poland, with non-overlapping terms of office) ensures pluralism and resilience to current political pressures.

The proposed solutions concerning the KRRiT lower the constitutional standing of this body, turning it into a back office for procedural checks rather than a serious media-market regulator.

The draft amendment to the Media Law provides, among other things, for increasing the KRRiT's membership from 5 to 9 people, which has no substantive justification and does not derive from EMFA. In practice, the draft's provisions diminish the KRRiT's role.

Increasing KRRiT's membership by almost half represents, above all, an unjustified increase in public costs. We estimate this would amount to at least PLN 6 million in the first year of operation and around PLN 5 million in subsequent years. Given the government's frequent calls for savings in public administration, such a significant increase in the National Broadcasting Council's operating costs is entirely incomprehensible and harmful.

It should be stressed that increasing the number of KRRiT members would also lengthen and complicate decision-making processes, without any real strengthening of the Council's capacity to carry out its new duties. The draft entirely omits a key EMFA requirement: providing the regulator with adequate financial, staffing and technical resources. It is worth noting that the Polish parliament has significantly reduced the KRRiT's budget.

Particularly concerning are the proposals concerning the funding of public media. Replacing the subscription fee with a budgetary grant, set annually by the finance minister, who would be allowed discretion in determining the amount (set out in the draft law as ‘not less than PLN 2.5 billion’ per year), would in practice mean making public broadcasters dependent on government decisions. This is contrary to the provisions of EMFA, which requires effective guarantees of public media's independence from the executive.

Importantly, a fundamental change to the system of granting state aid from the budget to public media requires notification to the European Commission. The Commission issues a decision on this matter. Assessing compliance with EU law is a time-consuming process – in practice it can take around a year.

The draft ‘Media Law’ under consultation contains numerous solutions that raise serious constitutional and systemic concerns, including:

• apparent simplification measures in the area of concessions and permits, which in practice increase formalities and the risk of market concentration,
• state interference in the self-governance of media-industry organisations (e.g. concerning codes of journalistic ethics),
• discriminatory criteria for candidates for the leadership of public media and for the KRRiT (specifying fields of study and narrow paths of experience).

Although the draft law formally invokes the need to implement the solutions set out in the EMFA, in reality it omits many key obligations arising from that regulation. Missing, among other things, are:

• entrusting the KRRiT with oversight of media service providers' compliance with EMFA obligations,
• tools for coordinating action regarding media services from outside the EU,
• adequate solutions for audience-measurement systems in line with the EMFA (Article 24),
• methodologically consistent and analytically sound rules for assessing media concentration (in line with Article 22 of the EMFA),
• providing the KRRiT with adequate financial, staffing and technical resources to carry out the tasks entrusted to it under the EMFA (in line with Article 7(3)).

The draft, in its current form, does not constitute a coherent reform of the media market. Instead of strengthening the regulator's independence and guaranteeing pluralism and financial stability for public media, it introduces solutions that are chaotic, costly, and at odds with the constitutional principles of freedom of speech and with EU law.

The National Broadcasting Council stresses that the amendment requires thorough rework – with a clear shift in emphasis away from short-term political aims and towards the real challenges facing the Polish media market in relation to the EMFA and digital transformation.

As part of the consultation, the KRRiT will send its position to the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. One member of the Council will submit separate comments on the draft.