Bulgaria

[BG] Amendments to the Law on the Telecommunications Adopted

IRIS 2002-2:1/29

Gergana Petrova

Georgiev, Todorov & Co

On 19 December 2001, the Law on Amendments of the Telecommunications Law was adopted. It renames and restructures the main body for the regulation and supervision of telecommunications in Bulgaria. The former supervisory body - the State Committee on Telecommunications (SCT) was a state body attached to the Council of the Ministers. It was composed of 5 members appointed by the Prime Minister in accordance with a governmental resolution for a mandate of 7 years. According to the amended version of Chapter 4 Section 1 of the Law, the main regulatory and supervisory body of the telecommunications will now be called the Committee on Regulation of Telecommunications (CRT). It is an independent state body (Art. 22). The Law now requires all its members to have a University education. Among its members there must be "at least one qualified lawyer and one economist" (Art. 23 Para 2). The CRT consists of 5 members elected/appointed according to the following: one chairman of the Committee is appointed by the Prime Minister on the basis of a governmental resolution; one vice-chairman and two members of the Committee are elected by the Parliament; one member of the Committee is appointed by the President. The members of CRT have a mandate for 5 years. The amendments introduce restrictions and requirements concerning the conflict of interests that may occur during the decision-making process by the CRT. To that end, each member of the Committee is obliged to notify any kind of financial or business interest he/she may have in a particular decision (Art. 24 Para 5-7). The new Committee is aimed to be less bound to the government, as well as more independent and professionally oriented than the former one.