Poland

Poland has been governed since December 2023 by a coalition led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Since August 2025 it has operated in cohabitation with President Karol Nawrocki, formally independent but supported by the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party.

Nawrocki took office on 6 August 2025 and had issued 37 vetoes by 12 June 2026, within ten months, exceeding the totals recorded by several predecessors across their entire mandates. The governing coalition does not hold the three-fifths majority in the Sejm required to override a veto, and presidential referrals to the Constitutional Tribunal have further complicated judicial, institutional and socioeconomic reform.

The opposition also fragmented. In July 2026 Jarosław Kaczyński confirmed the departure of more than thirty PiS parliamentarians who had declined to renounce membership of the Rozwój Plus association founded by former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. The split weakened the largest opposition party before the 2027 parliamentary election.

Reporters Without Borders ranks Poland 27th of 180 countries in its 2026 World Press Freedom Index with a score of 75.52, against 31st and 74.79 in 2025, and 24th on the economic indicator with 62.71. It records insufficient transparency in state advertising, competition between locally financed government newspapers and independent publishers, and the majority stake Orlen retains in the Polska Press network.

The European Commission’s rule of law country chapter on Poland of 17 July 2026 records a decrease in polarising and biased content in public service media over the previous two years, alongside findings that the independence of public service media remains a high risk and that concerns have been raised about the continuing liquidation of the main public service media.

Reform of the public media framework remained incomplete. The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage published a draft amendment to the Broadcasting Act in December 2025, registered as UC130, which would abolish the licence fee, liquidate the National Media Council, enlarge the National Broadcasting Council (KRRiT) from five members to nine and guarantee public media at least PLN 2.5 billion a year from the state budget. The Ministry of Finance and Economy objected in a letter of 29 December 2025, estimating the cost at about PLN 25 billion over ten years. The European Affairs Committee adopted the draft in June 2026 and it remained before the Standing Committee of the Council of Ministers, without reaching the Sejm. The existing governance and financing arrangements therefore remained in force.

The position of KRRiT itself was contested. The Senate rejected the Council’s 2025 annual report on 8 July 2026 and the Sejm on 18 September. Under the Broadcasting Act the mandates of all members expire within 14 days of the last such resolution if the President confirms the expiry. On 28 September President Nawrocki declined to confirm it, stating that he categorically disagreed with both chambers, which leaves the Council, chaired by Agnieszka Glapiak, in office until its term ends on 3 October 2028.

State Media Monitor maps four Polish entries: Telewizja Polska (TVP), Polskie Radio, the Polish Press Agency (PAP) and Polska Press.

TVP, Polskie Radio and PAP have remained in liquidation since December 2023. KRRiT characterised the arrangement in July 2026 as an apparent rather than substantive liquidation, stating that no actual liquidation measures had been taken while the companies continued to broadcast, employ staff, commission programming and plan investment, and that the liquidators’ conduct departed from the Commercial Companies Code. The Council’s chair notified the prosecutor in April 2026 and no investigation had been opened. The assessment reflects the regulator’s position in an unresolved dispute.

In the first half of 2026 KRRiT distributed PLN 241.325 million in current licence fee receipts, comprising PLN 123.378 million for TVP, PLN 59.319 million for Polskie Radio and PLN 58.628 million for seventeen regional radio companies, and a further PLN 49.923 million was released from funds previously held in court deposits. The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage transferred PLN 1.2 billion over the same period, of which PLN 900 million went to TVP. The Council approved the 2025 public mission reports of fifteen broadcasters and rejected those of TVP, Polskie Radio, Radio Łódź and Radio Zachód, citing departures from its recommendations and from approved programme and financial plans.

Questions about editorial impartiality persisted. A KRRiT monitoring study published on 20 January 2026 covering 30 episodes of six current-affairs programmes broadcast between 29 September and 4 November 2025 found one-sided treatment favouring the governing coalition. A separate study of 50 editions of three Polskie Radio interview programmes broadcast from 16 to 27 March 2026 identified shortcomings in impartiality, pluralism and the separation of journalism from political advocacy. The regulator also reported that governing parties received an average of 65 per cent of the airtime allocated to presenting party positions across the public broadcasters in the first half of 2026, against 35 per cent for opposition parties; TVP and Radio PiK, reported together, recorded 74 per cent. These findings concern particular programmes and measurements and do not by themselves demonstrate that the incumbent government imposes or approves a sustained editorial line across the broadcasters.

Polska Press moved from Captured Public and State-Managed to ISM in the 2024 review, following the replacement of its management and the separation of editorial from commercial functions. In the 2025 review TVP and Polskie Radio moved from State-Controlled to ISFM, and PAP was recorded as ISM in that year’s global findings. The 2026 review confirms the four classifications and resolves the record for PAP, whose previous entry carried conflicting readings.

TVP and Polskie Radio remain predominantly publicly financed and continue to operate under disputed liquidation arrangements, without the appointment procedures envisaged in the draft legislation. PAP is wholly state-owned but draws most of its operating revenue from commercial services, and its subsidy does not amount to predominant state financing. Polska Press is indirectly state-controlled through Orlen, in which the State Treasury holds 49.90 per cent of the shares and voting rights, and the sale Orlen has announced is not completed.

No sustained editorial line imposed or approved by the incumbent state authorities was established for any of the four entries in this review. That is not a finding of complete editorial independence: politically exposed appointments, financial dependence, unresolved governance disputes and the regulator’s monitoring findings continue to warrant scrutiny.

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