BUDAPEST (Reuters) – The European Union has chosen to ignore conflicts over judicial and media reform in Poland, an aide to the Hungarian prime minister said on Thursday, as he accused Brussels of hypocrisy in its reaction to the disputes.
A pro-EU coalition headed by Donald Tusk took power in Poland in December 2023 and started an overhaul of state media and the prosecutor’s office which it says were politicised under the former Law and Justice (PiS) government.
“The Hungarian government considers it one of the weaknesses of the current European Union that it interferes in domestic politics,” Gergely Gulyas told a news conference. “We can see that those who are strict in other cases have shut their eyes here,” he said, referring to Poland.
In December the new government had taken state news channel TVP Info off air and dismissed executives from state media in what it said was a move designed to restore impartiality.
Media analysts and free speech activists say that under PiS, TVP did not act as the neutral news provider its charter says it should be but acted as a government mouthpiece.
PiS also denounces the detention of two members of its former government who had been sentenced to prison. The party has sought to portray them as political prisoners, a description that has been rejected by the government and human rights activists.
(Reporting by Gergely Szakacs and Anita Komuves; Writing by Alan Charlish; Editing by Alison Williams)
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