21-06-2009

No funding for new Polish media bill

By Katarzyna Grynienko
    The Polish Ministry of Finance announced that the national budget does not have enough money to finance reforms planned by the new media bill.
    The Polish Finance report encourages the Senate and the creators of the bill to decrease the media bill budget for 2010, which was initially 880,000 PLN (€195,000). This request came as a shock for the government and the authors of the bill, as the Ministry of Finance had not reported any problems while the bill was being debated. Iwona Śledzińska-Katarasińska, the head of the culture committee and one of the main creators of the bill told the press, "No such statement, including what anybody from the ministry said, that some amount of the budget will not be available was made known to me till now, and I was leading the whole process of introducing the new bill."

    The Polish National Broadcasting Council points out that the request of the Ministry of Finance to decrease the budget for financing public television and radio can cause problems with Poland recieving approval from the European Commission and making the new bill legal fulfill the EU requirements.