German firms bought a string of news organisations in Poland in order to have greater influence on ex-Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a website has suggested, citing alleged comments by a former senior official.

The wpolityce.pl website cited what it said were a fresh batch of recordings from Poland’s 2014 “Waitergate” wire-tapping scandal.

Between July 2013 and June 2014, the conversations of people in the upper echelons of Polish politics, business and public service were recorded without their knowledge by waiters at a fashionable restaurant in Warsaw and later leaked to the media.

The revelation of the conversations, many of them expletive-ridden, rocked Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform (PO) government in 2014, later leading to the resignation of a string of high-ranking party members.

More recordings have been revealed by the Polish public broadcaster’s TVP Info website.

wpolityce.pl said that Waldemar Pawlak, a deputy prime minister and economy minister in Tusk’s government, was taped talking to billionaire Michał Sołowow.

Pawlak was cited by wpolityce.pl as saying: “You could even imagine that it’s worth subsidising a company such as [private television broadcaster] TVN in order to have an impact on politics like TVN has.

“The Germans bought … [tabloid] Fakt, [the Polish edition of news magazine] Newsweek, [popular website] Onet. These are examples where I can say that Tusk is more influenced by an article in Fakt than by the opinion of the Confederation of Employers [in Poland] … Today, the impact of media outlets controlled by various international corporations is much greater on the Polish government than all entrepreneurs put together.”

wpolityce.pl said that Pawlak also encouraged Sołowow to invest in TVN and to help support "centre-liberal” groups in Poland.

Pawlak was cited by wpolityce.pl as saying: “Relatively small assets have a disproportionately large impact on shaping the conditions in which we live. The prime minister is more concerned that he will be badmouthed in a newspaper or on television rather than that, for example, that he will not draw up good regulations.”

Among those recorded in the wire-tapping scandal were former Interior Minister Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz, former Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, former central bank head Marek Belka, and current Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, at the time the chairman of a major bank.

(pk/gs)

Source: wpolityce.pl