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Despite the fact that the state formally owns only about 30 percent. Orlen shares, in fact, owns a company that is among the top five taxpayers in Poland. The company’s president said on December 7 that the acquisition is in line with Orlen’s development strategy, the BBC reports.
However, the agreement also sparked a wave of Polish politicians and journalists, both opponents and rulers. The latter clearly welcome these changes in the country’s media market: they have previously argued that Polish media should be controlled by Polish owners, while the former Polska Press was owned by the German company Verlagsgruppe Passau.
The opposition, on the other hand, proclaims the “putinization” of Polish public life and calls the agreement a “black day for press freedom”.
What is Polska Press?
Polska Press is a key player in the Polish press market. It publishes 20 of the 24 regional dailies published in Poland, as well as some 120 local weeklies, which are printed at 6 printers belonging to this group of media. It also owns dozens of websites, from online training and women’s websites to agriculture or construction.
Daniel Obajtek, Chairman of the Board of PKN Orlen, said that the acquisition of the media group is in line with the plans of the company he owns to strengthen its influence in retail. According to him, control of Polska Press will allow his concern to reach 17.4 million. this group of website visitors (Poland has a population of about 38 million people) and as such increases its customer base.
Polish media experts say that one of the most valuable assets of Polska Press is the data of the category called “big data”: almost half of the interests of the people of the country, their hobbies and tendencies to buy one or another product. .
Another important fact is that this summer PKN Orlen acquired Ruch, the largest press distribution network in Poland, which has faced serious financial difficulties in recent years. This was likely a planned step to reach your future readers even more effectively.
The amount for which the Polish energy giant managed to acquire Polska Press is not mentioned. The former owners stated that the sale was made for “strategic reasons” and decided to focus on the German market.
Budapest or Moscow?
Although the new owners do not mention political benefits in the announcement of the acquisition of Polska Press, nothing more is said in Warsaw when the transaction is completed.
The point is that representatives of the ruling Law and Justice Party have been outraged by foreign investors in the country’s media for many years.
It is difficult to determine if they are at least somewhat correct, writes the BBC: By the end of the last century, Western investors, mainly German, had created or bought part of the Polish media. On the other hand, a large number of influential and high-circulation publications, not only oppositional but also loyal to the government, belong to local companies.
However, Jaroslaw Kaczinski, the Law and Justice leader, who is often called the true leader of Poland, although he occupies a rather insignificant position of Deputy Prime Minister, said this summer: “The media in Poland must be Polish “, a phrase that can be considered a postulate of the current government program.
As soon as Andrzej Duda, representative of the party, was defeated in the country’s presidential elections, even several prominent representatives of Law and Justice affirmed that one of the priorities of the second term would be the “repolonization” of the Polish media.
Attitudes towards “repolonization” in Poland itself are radically different. J. Kaczinski himself has said that the media of foreign capital often “present an absolutely incorrect image of Poland and the world to their viewers and readers.”
Opponents assure him that in the five years of the rule of law and justice, state television and radio have become a propaganda machine, and strict censorship is being applied even to music programs.
Poland claims that in order to “re-colonize” the media, the Polish ruling party is targeting its geopolitical allies: Hungarian President Viktor Orban and his “FIDES” party. In this country, dozens of independent media have disappeared in the same way in recent years, with the sudden appearance of new owners who initially promised not to interfere in editorial policy and later censored television broadcasts and newspaper articles.
The state of freedom of expression in Hungary is now the subject of constant criticism from Brussels and various public organizations.
However, when analyzing recent trends in the Polish media, Polish commentators see analogies not only with Hungary.
“The concern about state fuel, which is being acquired by an independent media, is a scenario of putinization of public life in Poland. There is no democracy without free media. Poles are becoming less and less reliable sources of information and the government is getting more and more unpunished. At least for now, “Seimas deputy, representative of the opposition Jan Grabiec, wrote on his Twitter account.
Former Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote even more directly: “Orlen becomes the Gazprom of Law and Justice (of the party).”
The authorities suggest “not to dramatize the situation.” Peter Muller, a spokesman for the Polish authorities, said the case was a “purely commercial solution for a particular company” similar to the Washington Post acquired by Amazon, and that “it does not exist without a basis.”
What happens next?
The acquisition of Orlen, the biggest player in the Polish regional press, cannot be said to have been a big surprise. The Economist wrote about the ongoing negotiations in October this year.
“Even though most of the publications (published by Polska Press) have a relatively small circulation, they are important to the ruling party because its readers are residents of very Catholic rural regions of Poland, which is the base of its electorate.” Economist.
It is at this point that Law and Justice face the problem of ratings, and the fact that they need to mobilize their loyal allies is an indisputable fact. This is not just about mass protests over the introduction of a de facto ban on abortion in the country, but also because the Polish authorities are showing dubious success in the fight against the coronavirus.
On the other hand, such investment in a media group is unlikely to be limited to “fighting fires”, which the party is fighting for a specific period of time. Lukash Shumovsky, a professor at the University of Warsaw and a former health minister, told TOK FM that members of the Law and Justice party were better prepared for the 2023 elections in Poland after gaining control of local media and internet portals. .
The opposition Gazeta Wyborcza says that now it will be necessary to be attentive to what happens next to Polska Press: if censorship is introduced and employees become true to themselves, free media will have to talk about it and readers will have to search for new ones. information sources. .
Another alarm and reason for future protests could be the so-called “media decoupling” (another idea being developed by the ruling in Poland that would prohibit foreign investors from owning more than 30% of any media) that would completely destroy other independent media. government. , media centers.
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