Foreign Desk Report
Warsaw: Poland’s right-wing ruling coalition has collapsed after a small coalition partner announced that it was leaving the government amid a rift over legislation it views as an attack on media freedom. The media bill, which is scheduled for an afternoon vote on Wednesday, would prevent non-European owners from having controlling stakes in Polish media companies.
It is viewed as a crucial test for the survival of independent media in the former communist nation, coming six years into the rule of a populist government that has chipped away at media and judicial independence.
After a deputy prime minister who is the head of the Agreement party expressed his opposition to the bill and other government plans, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki fired him from the government on Tuesday.
Agreement party leader Jaroslaw Gowin had said he viewed the legislation as an attack on media diversity.
Gowin’s party, which was viewed as the most moderate partner in the conservative three-party coalition that has governed Poland since 2015, said on Wednesday that it was formally withdrawing.
