Is democracy being restored or undermined in Poland? - World Questions, BBC World Service

I'm Jonny Dymond and welcome to World Questions from the Royal Castle in the Polish capital, Warsaw. The new government has been making sweeping changes as it seeks to roll back the reforms of the last administration. The audience here will put their questions to a panel of senior politicians. Welcome to the ballroom of the Royal Castle in Warsaw. This former royal palace is where the first constitution of Poland was signed. And in Poland today, constitutional issues - who runs the country and h

ow on top of the Bill. The new prime minister has sacked the heads of state owned media, dismissed the protests of the courts and clashed over and over again with the president, an ally of the last government. The prime minister says he is reestablishing democracy and de-politicising the state. The president says the new government is violating the constitution and promoting anarchy. This country is right next to Ukraine and was the first to offer aid. How strong is that commitment two years on?

With me to answer questions put to them directly by our audience is our panel. Mateusz Morawiecki MP was until only a few weeks ago, the Prime Minister of Poland. He is vice president of PiS, the Law and Justice Party. It's the largest party, but its coalition failed to get enough seats for him to hold on to power after the election last year. Agnieszka Pomaska MP, is a senior member of Civic Platform, the new Prime Minister's party and the vice chair of the European Affairs Committee of the sa

me, the lower house of the Polish Parliament. Senator Magdelena Biejat is co-leader of Razem, a left wing party which hasn't joined the governing coalition but will support it on key votes. She's a deputy marshal or Speaker of the Senate. Krzysztof Bosak MP is a Deputy Marshal or Speaker of the same and is co-leader of the right wing Confederation Party. Let's go straight to our first question, and it comes from John. I was at a TVP when police officers, dozens of them went in. How do you justif

y such drastic measures and how is that democratic? A little bit of background. Late December last year, police went into the state broadcaster TVP after the government dismissed the head of the station, along with the heads of Polish Radio and the Polish Press Agency, Civic Platform, the main party and the governing coalition had long complained that the previous government had turned TVP into a propaganda channel. Agnieszka Pomaska from Civic Platform - how do you justify such drastic measures

? How is it democratic? First of all, thank you for the invitation and thank you for your question. To answer it we have to look back and describe the situation that we had during the last eight years in the Polish Public Media finance from the stage budget. It was not public media in a sense. We got used to it like BBC, for example. The media during the last eight years were used to spread propaganda, to accuse opposition and to fight with the opposition. The situation might be it must be clea

ned up. And that's why there is a new board of the TV, public TV and the same radio and all those who were using media, using public money to all to spread propaganda, to abuse the power, they simply shouldn't work anymore. And on the on the public TV or public radio. Of course, everything must be done under the Polish law and with the Constitution. The question presses you particularly the question presses you, particularly about sending police officers into the public broadcaster to enforce yo

ur will. There were there were people who were illegally inside, including politicians who are blocking the the building of the media. And they were against changes that were legally done by the new government. So it's normal that the police had to react. Former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. What did you make of it? Thank you. Thank you very much for inviting me. Imagine that a Minister of His Majesty's Government illegally dismissing a board of BBC. Then imagine that the same minister is a

ctually replacing all the fired people with his own people. And then the news channel is actually closed down for the first time since the martial law in 1981. And this is what has been happening in Poland for the last couple of weeks. Actually, people who are not illegal either, because all the politicians, all the members of parliament have their right, according to Polish law to intervene to go to different public buildings and to make any kind of supervision, intervention and so on. So all w

hat has happened happened completely illegally because there is a law in this country which says about what you can do about public television, what you cannot do about public service. And by the way, I can guarantee you, while I was prime minister, all Poles can could see three different TV channels and three different sets of opinions. Okay. Okay. Let's stay on this particular issue, though. Because now you can you can have one TVN and another TV public, which is almost the same as this democr

acy. I doubt it. I think that democracy requires requires freedom of speech. Okay. Okay. Okay. Please. Thank you very much indeed. Krzysztof Bosak, from the right wing Confederation Party. What do you make of the police raid that was made on the TV station? We are quite critical towards the propaganda that we had in the public media during law and justice government. In fact, we were not invited because we were political competitors at Law and Justice Party. But we are also critical towards th

is decision of new government to take media by force, not by law. It should be proposing a new bill about public media, then voting in parliament and then sending two presidents to sign it. If presidents, do not sign negotiating with president or waiting for presidential elections next year and then changing the board, not first, changing the board by force, then starting discussing about the new Bill. Thank you very much. Magdelena Biejat from left wing Razem party. I mean, the question refers

to drastic measures, dozens of police officers, a breach in democracy, perhaps. Yes, it does. And I wanted to say that Mr Morawieck was compared the public media during the the rule of law and justice to BBC. And I would say that it's very unkind to our hosts to do such an impression, because because the scale of the propaganda was extremely bad. And I'm not referring even to the political, political opponents of the ruling party, but more to the normal people who are protesting the government.

I myself was very involved in many protests of LGBTQ community, of women's rights activists, and we've had a terrible, terrible, dehumanizing narrative towards those people in the public media, something that should never be possible in the democratic country that's part of the European Union. Having said that, I am absolutely against letting any police raid and the institutions. I think that it's just it doesn't look well and it doesn't help. When we talk about changing the the atmosphere, I

don't agree with Mr Bosak when he says that we should have waited because it was not easy to wait. While one of the most important public television, the one that's been being funded by all of us here in Poland, was so much concentrated on promoting very harmful propaganda. And that was something that should have been stopped. But I think that there were better ways to do it. And I think that the problem now is that and here I will agree with Mr Bosak, which happens rarely, that we need a new

Bill and there is no trace of it. Yes. Thanks for calling. Thank you very much. And let's get to our next question comes from a couple, Alexander and Cuba. Hi, my name's Alexander, and I'm here with my boyfriend, Cuba. And we would like to ask the following question. As a gay couple, we want to know how Polish politicians will act to tear down the rainbow curtain dividing our country from the rest of the Western world. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. A little context for those people who

don't know it, In contrast with some European countries and other countries around the world, there is no same sex marriage here. There is no law against hate crime. There is no civil partnership and there is no gay adoption. Magdelena Biejat from Razem the left wing party, what do you think about the rainbow curtain in particular, I suppose gay marriage? Well, I am a strong supporter of LGBTQ rights and I believe that we are ready in Poland much more than the politicians themselves, I must say

, to introduce same sex marriage, including the adoption, of course, for the for the same sex couples. The sad thing is that it seems that we won't be able to go through with the same sex marriage Bill during this term because of the constitution of the Polish same, and it's still very conservative. The good news is that there has been there has been information that the the ruling the ruling coalition will go ahead with the civic unions, and that's a great, great news because that's a huge step

forward and that they will also address the hate crime. And I'm very happy with that because this is something really important, because, you know, we have to be able to protect our all our citizens regardless their you know, their belief and who they love and what they where they live. And and I do hope that that this will that those will go through. Thank you. Mateusz the former prime minister, the rainbow curtain and gay marriage. It's very important to say that in Poland we do not do not ha

ve a major problem with crime towards this community completely. You don't have a problem with hate crime. Comparing to the other countries to which the statistics which I saw and then all the rights which the same sex couple needs according to our different laws, can be also executed. And this is why we didn't see any reason that any new regulation needs to be adopted. But they they say, why are they why do they not have the right to marry? Because the in the Polish constitution, the marriage

is reserved for women and men. But things do change, constitutions change as well. In our Constitution, the marriage is reserved only for men and women. And that is that is what you believe it is. This is not true. Forgive me. You said that the Constitution. No, it's not true. So it's obviously I mean, you have you have to read the Constitution. Okay. Okay. It's not. And I say we will. We will. We will. We will come to you, if we may, after we've let the panel have their say. Thank you very muc

h for your contributions. Let's move on and Agnieszka Pomaska from the governing civic platform party. Is gay marriage a step too far for your party? Personally, I'm in favor of what's being said, but I'm afraid we are far from that according to the majority. We don't have for that in the in the present parliament. The problem is bigger. We just talked about public TV. Hate speech was spread against LGBTQ using public money in the public media, and that's something that should be stopped and wi

ll never happen again. And that's why we need changes. And of course. If we if we speak about the law, it's something we can do. And I think we have majority in the parliament to include hate speech against LGBT into the law, too, to make it easier to fight with it. Okay. Thank you very much indeed. Krzysztof Bosak from the right wing Confederation Party. Yes, we are a conservative party. Some of us are even we can say traditionalists, so we do not support such legislation. In fact, we don't sup

port all this LGBT agenda. We believe that it's a part of a left left wing programme, a part of so-called progressivism or wokeism, and we reject all that stuff. We believe that every citizen should be safe, should be secured by the state institutions. Every citizen should have the same rights and freedoms. But under Polish Constitution, it's completely clear that the marriage is a union of man and woman. Of course, leftists try to revert or subvert this constitutional norm. This is what they al

ways do. But in my opinion, it's false. We support safety for everybody. But also we don't want any hate speech law because we know that it is restricting freedom of speech and it means leftist censorship. Thank you very much, Krzysztof. Thank you. I want to hear from the audience, if I could. I know there's a wide range of views here. I'm going to start with you, madam, over there. Thank you very. Much. Hello. I was ten years old when communism ended, so I sort of remember the transition perio

d. I spent ten years in the UK. I came back to Poland two years ago as a woman, as a girl I felt more liberated in communism in terms of empowerment of women and girls. I think there was a lot more forward looking in that sense. And I think, yes, I've seen a lot of polarisation and a lot of hate speech. So I think it's it's a little bit of Poland that I don't recognise. Okay. Thank you very much, Sir, over there. Thank you very much, sir. Morality doesn't change. The world might change. Morality

needs to stay the same. One man, one woman for a lifetime is the best thing that God has given us. And it needs to be preserved. Thank you very much, sir. Any other thoughts from the audience who were very noisy earlier? Madam. I also have pretty conservative views, and I'm against gay and lesbian marriages. But still, I believe some compromise is needed just to protect people's rights. So I believe same sex civil unions would be a good compromise that would ensure that people's rights for, for

instance, for all the information about their partner's health, are that those rights may be ensured. Thank you. Thank you very much, madam. Thank you. And, sir. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. We appreciate to hear compromises being said. Right. I just want to say that traditionalism is always an effort to maintain what was was happening in the past. But we are living in a world that constantly evolves and, you know, it's okay not to believe in us, but we're still here. Thank you very much. I heard

I heard a lot of cheering and a lot of some booing during the questions. We have one more thought. I'll get back to the question of perhaps the partner of the questioner, if you'd like to have your last word sir. Thank you. Just to comment on what Mr Morawiecki was saying, the LGBTQ hate crimes are not being registered in Poland as a separate type of hate crime. This is why the statistics doesn't show them. It's not only hate crime, it's also the general mental health and well-being of LGBTQ pe

ople, especially the youth and the government led by Mr Morawiecki in the last eight years fought very hard to make it very difficult for young people to come out and to live in Poland. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. Thank you very much to our audience for your thoughts there. Let's go to our next question. It comes from Mel. Thank you. Hello, my name is Mel and I'd like to move on to Russia and Ukraine as we see the war developing and the third year starting. What's the end game? What a

re your thoughts on on this major humanitarian crisis? Former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. I'm cautiously pessimistic because the fact of the matter is that Russia has vast natural resources, vast human resources, and they have they have patience, which democratic systems do not have to such to such an extent. What we need right now is a very solidarity based type of approach from all the NATO countries to support Ukraine with new yet another wave of weapons and ammunition, because this i

s what they need. And for the first time in our history, the last 300 years, somebody is defending us from the arch enemy and we should be doing as much as we can strategically and tactically to to support Ukrainian troops in their fight towards the Russian aggression. Agnieszka Pomaska from the Civic Platform Party. The question is, what is an end game? I believe that we have all we can do to help Ukraine to win the war. It's not yet our war directly, but we are on the border. It's difficult to

imagine what will be the consequences if Ukraine will lose the war. But of course, I'm very much worried about the situation in US and decision they will make their. Thank you. Krzysztof Bosak from the Confederation Party. It's very hard to predict the future, especially in such a situation. But in fact I'm also rather pessimistic because we can see that Poland did everything and even maybe more than our country was possible to do, and another Western nations did less. In my opinion, the leve

l of support from the United States was too small and too slow. And so we have, in my opinion, unfortunately, the possibility that it will become another frozen conflict. And if this war will be, and without any clear result, especially bad result for Russia, it is possible that Russia will start something new and will challenge the countries very seriously. Thank you very much indeed. Magdelena Biejat from Razem from the left wing party. Well, this is probably the first moment during the debate

that you've you've heard all of us agree. It is so important that we restore our good relations with the EU countries, that we restore good relations with our neighbours, that not only the ones from the Eastern Europe, but also the ones from the Baltic Sea region, because this is where our geopolitical interests are very aligned. But of course, as Mr Morawiecki said, we we fight against a very powerful enemy, which is Russia. And we have to use all the resources we have and to to be able to to

confront it. Thank you very much. I want to hear from the audience, if I could, on this immensely serious topic. What is the end game is one question. How do we end the war, I guess is another. And I'd love to hear your statements briefly if we could. I've got a gentleman over in the at the edge there. That's right, sir. My name is Scott. Hi. Scott. I'm an American and I've lived in Warsaw for almost 20 years, and it's difficult to not take a tiny bit of offense to the comment that the United St

ates hasn't done enough to help Poland. There is at least 10,000 American troops in this country as we speak, ready to defend this country's border. Our countries have a long history of helping each other out and supporting each other, and I hope that continues. Poland is one of the leaders in Europe for a defense budget, and I'd love to see Poland put aside some of its polarised and partisan politics to unite and become the leader in the EU that it can and should be. Thank you very much indeed,

sir. And then we've got a gentleman there. So my name is Kazimierz. I'm a Polish journalist. I've been personally to naval bases in Poland, and I've seen firsthand what the Americans are doing. And I want to thank you because I think that they are doing a lot and they are helping a lot, and they are doing what they can to make sure that we are safe. And I feel all of us in Poland feel safe because of Nato and because of what America and the UK is doing and all the other countries. Thank you ver

y much. Thoughts over there. What I think about when I when it comes to Poland is that we have welcomed millions of Ukrainians, women and children. And I think it's important to remember that, as you all agree on helping Ukraine, we should also agree on helping Polish people continue to help Ukrainians, but also to have the international community remembering and aiding us as attention is diverted to other conflicts. Thank you. So, gentleman in the red tie. Thank you very much. Hello, I'm from P

ortugal. Regarding the end of the Ukrainian war with Russia, I believe this is the time we start listening and try to create some diplomatic corridors. Also with the Russian Federation. It will be impossible if we defend the end of the war, supporting only one side and the listening only one side is. Is there sympathy for that view that we need to open up diplomatic channels with Russia, that there is some kind of deal to be done with Russia? There are there. Gentleman here has had his hand up f

or a bit. Thank you very much. We are Polish people we fighting with Russians for over 1000 years and and we will will fight and will fight for another thousand if it's necessary. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you very much indeed for all your contributions. And that is all we have time for with World Questions in Poland. A big thank you to this month's panel. Thanks also to our audience here in Poland and our audience around the world. I'm Jonny Dymond. Goodbye.