Status: 08/10/2021 8:12 p.m.
In the dispute over reforms, Poland’s Prime Minister Morawiecki dismissed one of his deputies, Gowin. Its party Porozumenie then announced the withdrawal from the alliance with the PiS party.
The governing coalition in Poland has collapsed. One of the two partners of the national-conservative ruling party PiS, the Porozumenie (understanding) party, announced in the evening that it was withdrawing from the alliance.
The Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki had previously dismissed one of his deputies – the chairman of Porozumenie, Jaroslaw Gowin. The reason for the dismissal of the previous development minister was that he and the members of his group had not worked sufficiently on reforms of the national-conservative ruling party PiS. PiS boss Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who is also Vice Prime Minister, remains in office.
Dispute over broadcasting law
The background to the conflict is likely to be the dispute over an amendment to the Broadcasting Act. Gowin is against it because, from his point of view, it strains Poland’s relations with the USA. The change introduced by the PiS in July provides that broadcasting licenses can only be issued to foreigners if they “have their headquarters or their place of residence in the European Economic Area”. In addition, the condition applies that the licensee must not be dependent on someone who is headquartered or resides outside of it.
According to critics, the law is aimed at the private broadcaster TVN, which is part of the US group Discovery through a holding company registered in the Netherlands. The news channel TVN24 in particular takes a line that is critical of the PiS. In the evening several thousand people took to the streets against the law in various Polish cities. Parliament wants to vote on it on Wednesday.