Poland's newly formed pro-EU coalition government has announced plans to dissolve the country's public television, radio, and news agency, as part of its commitment to restoring impartiality to state media.

This decision follows the recent actions by Culture Minister Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz, who took the state's 24-hour news channel, TVP Info, off the air and dismissed the boards of public media.

Opposition members from the Law and Justice (PiS) party have denounced these dismissals as illegal and responded with sit-in protests. President Andrzej Duda, an ally of PiS, characterized the sackings as causing "anarchy" and urged the new government to adhere to legal procedures.

In a concise statement, Minister Sienkiewicz explained that placing the entities into liquidation would enable them to continue operations during the restructuring process, avoiding staff layoffs. He emphasized that the companies could be removed from liquidation at any time by their owner, the culture ministry.

The minister attributed this decision to President Duda's veto of a government bill on Wednesday, which proposed allocating 3 billion zloty (€695 million; £603 million) in funding for public media next year. President Duda justified his veto by claiming that the new government's appointment of new management had violated the country's constitution.

Earlier on Wednesday, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said his government now planned to spend the money on cancer treatment and psychiatric help for children.

Roman Giertych, a lawyer who has represented Mr Tusk and is now an MP for his party, said the culture minister's decision "ends the legal dispute" and allows the government to appoint liquidators who can conduct restructuring.

The head of President Duda's office, Marcin Mastalerek, said the liquidation announcement was an "admission of defeat" by the government, one they chose after they could not find a legal way to change the public media management boards.

Rights groups questioned the manner of the dismissals. The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights said public media required urgent reform because they had become "a propaganda mouthpiece of the ruling camp" under the PiS-led government that had created political and legal conditions that made carrying out such reform for Mr. Tusk's government "very difficult".

"However, we cannot fail to notice that the way of starting the changes in the public media raises serious doubts," the group said.

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