Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has announced he will place the commercial television networks TVN and Polsat on a list of “strategic companies”, giving his government the power to stop what it considers “hostile” takeovers.
The move on December 11 came in the wake of Polish media reports that a Hungarian TV company was attempting to purchase TVN from current owners Warner Bros Discovery.
Polsat has been involved in a legal wrangle between its owner Zygmunt Solorz and his children who have challenged his right to control the company.
TVN has for more than two decades been a station sympathetic to Tusk and his PO party and hostile towards the now-opposition Conservatives (PiS) – to the extent that PiS supporters have sometimes called it “Tusk Vision Network”.
However, according to PiS MP and former deputy justice minister Sebasian Kaleta, the purchase of the company that owns Dutch-based TVN cannot, under European law, be stopped. He was referring to the fact that the Dutch company was used by Warner Bros Discovery as the official owner to ensure that in future it could be sold within the EU outside of Poland. That would mean any purchase of TVN would take place outside of the jurisdiction of Polish law.
Polsat has been a politically neutral station but liberal media have of late been claiming that the owner’s wife was a PiS supporter and that was part of the reasons for the family struggle for power over the network. Solorz’s children have claimed that they were attempting to stop the network becoming partisan.
Speaking at a press conference on December 11, Tusk told reporters he would not allow Polish media to fall under the influence of hostile interests “from the East”.
“We want to protect our country and the EU from interference in our electoral processes and over the work of our media,” he said. That was his justification for his decision that TVN and Polsat would be included in a list of strategic firms which his government can protect from what it considers to be hostile foreign takeover.
According to a report from liberal-leaning portal Onet.pl on December 9, Warner Bros Discovery, the owners of TVN, said a deal to sell the Polish TV part of the operation to Hungarian owners of Hungary’s TV2 network was well advanced.
Onet claimed that had delighted PiS politicians but concerned staff at TVN.
According to Onet, the sources close to the Tusk government were fully aware of developments. It said the administration was aiming to ensure that, should the Hungarian capital involved in the purchase have links to Russian and Chinese interests, then the Polish government would halt the takeover in the interests of state security.
Reacting to Tusk’s decision on the commercial TV networks, the former deputy justice minister Kaleta accused Tusk of what he called an illegal and partisan act.
“When it looked as if there was a chance that TVN would cease to be a propaganda vehicle for his party, Tusk rides to the rescue,” Kaleta told portal Niezależna.pl.
Kaleta added that, since Tusk’s decision could not have any effect over any sale adding that therefore, if the Polish Government attempted to stop TVN broadcasting, this would lead to “costly international legal ping-pong”.
The previous PiS government in 2021 had legislated to restrict foreign ownership of commercial media but that was vetoed by President Andrzej Duda, who bowed to pressure from the US administration that defended the interests of Warner Bros.Discovery in owning the station.
