On Wednesday, the Sejm adopted an amendment to the media law. The draft provides for clarification of the provisions on the granting of radio and television licenses to stations owned by foreign capital. The vote was 228 in favor of the bill, with 216 votes against and 10 abstentions.
As before, a broadcasting license will be available to entities from the European Economic Area, provided that they are not dependent on entities from outside the EEA.
All of this is over TV station owners who most likely broke Polish and EU's law by claiming that the station is owned by a shell company that has no employees, just an address (PO box) in the EU.
According to the opposition, the act, called by them "lex TVN", is aimed directly at TVN, owned by Discovery, which behaves like CNN or even MSNBC in America. PiS, the governing party, which came to power by winning elections and not a coup like CNN claimed, explains that it is about protecting the media market from hostile entities from outside the EU, such as from Russia, China, or Arab countries.
According to the unofficial findings of RMF FM radio, the Biden administration is "disappointed and irritated" by the actions of Polish authorities related to the "lex TVN" law. The broadcasting station found out that Washington was even considering the possibility of imposing sanctions on Warsaw. They say that there are three scenarios:
The first assumes that Poland will not receive an invitation to the Democracy Summit organized by President Joe Biden.
In the second scenario, the administration will block the sale of Abrams tanks that Poland wants to buy.
The third scenario, which is supposed to be a "nuclear option", is the imposition of personal sanctions on Polish politicians, including President Andrzej Duda, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, and PiS president Jarosław Kaczyński.
All three scenarios assume threatening Poland on the same level as Belarus or Russia. That would be a second great gift for Putin, after NS2 decision, in about a month.
We will just have to wait and see if Putin is invited to Joe Biden's Summit. I don't think anybody would be surprised by now.
BTW, why US administration doesn't want to wait for the results of the lawsuit that Discovery is planning? What if some inconvenient facts come up? Breaking the law is breaking the law, no matter who does it.
