Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov and his Cabinet have made it their mission to undo last-minute changes implemented by the previous government at the end of its four-year term.

Given the amount of controversy stirred by several decisions in the telecommunications sector, it was inevitable that the Cabinet would turn its sights to the issue. On November 12, Transport and Communications Minister Alexander Tsvetkov confirmed that such expectations were not misplaced.

Like all other European Union member states, Bulgaria must switch to digital television signal broadcasting by the end of 2012, but the process has been delayed for years, raising the prospect that Bulgaria will miss the deadline.

It would not be the first time that Bulgaria has missed EU deadlines in the telecoms sector – the country was almost two years late in implementing nationwide coverage of the 112 emergency number, prompting the European Commission to open an infringement procedure against Sofia.

Buying air time
Bulgaria will scrap the plan to build and maintain the network infrastructure that would re-broadcast the digital signals of Bulgarian National Television (BNT) and Bulgarian National Radio (BNR), Tsvetkov said.

"The only solution for BNT’s and BNR’s switch to a digital signal at a time of economic crisis is to call a tender open only to fully private bidders," Tsvetkov said in a statement.
Under the plan adopted by the previous government in May 2009, a public-private partnership would have built the network, for which 150 million leva was allocated from the state Budget.

The amount was arbitrary, since there appeared to be no study analysing the costs of the project, Deputy Minister Purvan Roussinov told a news conference on November 12, as quoted by website mediapool.bg. The money had not been spent, he said.

The tender could be called at the start of 2010, once the necessary legislative amendments are approved by Parliament, and a winner could be announced within two to three months, Roussinov said.

BNT and BNR would then pay an annual fee for the re-broadcasting service, which would be part of the yearly Budget subsidy to the state broadcasters. As it is, BNT and BNR pay such fees to telecoms firm Vivacom, the former state fixed-line monopoly, whose subsidiary NURTS re-broadcasts the analogue signal.

The private operator of the new digital network would be required by law to fully cover Bulgaria’s territory, which would ensure that BNT and  BNR reach about 30 per cent of Bulgaria’s population that only has access to terrestrial television, the ministry said.

The Cabinet will also set up an interdepartmental task force to review proposals on how to make digital-to-analogue converters easily affordable. The Transport and Communications Ministry said that its proposal was for the Government to offer private operators tax incentives in exchange for lower converter prices.

Legislative U-turn
A key element of the changes proposed by the ministry is the repeal of the Public Radio Transmission Act, approved in May, but which was criticised for creating more confusion in the sector and for the non-transparent way in which the previous cabinet drafted it.

Bulgarian media said at the time that the tripartite ruling coalition was pushing for legislative changes that could compromise the fairness of the transition to the digital broadcasting, giving an edge to companies with ties to the coalition. While the truth of those allegations was difficult to ascertain, the information blackout by the government did little to dispel such fears.

Instead, some of the law’s provisions would be incorporated in the Radio and Television Act and the Electronic Communications Act, while the rest would be discarded, Tsvetkov said. One of the provisions that the ministry proposed to be dropped was the "artificial separation" of signal transmission and re-broadcasting, he said. In this way, synergies would drive down the price of the re-broadcasting services, the ministry said.

Regulator resize
Another amendment to the Electronic Communications Act would roll back the size of the Communications Regulation Commission (CRC) to five members, instead of nine, and their term would be five years instead of six. The move is in line with the Cabinet’s plans to streamline the operations of all regulatory bodies, the ministry said.

In May, two parties in the ruling majority at the time pushed through amendments that increased the number of commissioners, arguing that it was warranted by the regulator’s rising workload.

CRC has been the target of European Commission criticism in the past, the Commission going as far as to start an infringement procedure against Bulgaria in 2007 because of fears that the independence of the national regulator and the decision-making process were compromised by the political wrangling over appointments and the extended period during which the CRC did not have a full complement of members. The EC ended the infringement procedure in June 2008.

"The amendments to the Electronic Communications Act aim to repair the breakdown of the telecommunications regulator. For years, it had five members, aided by a qualified administration. Given the size of the regulated market of telecommunications market, it is an unjustifiably bloated institution," the ministry said.

The changes would effectively abolish earlier amendments passed by the previous legislature and would re-instate the old structure, with three members elected by Parliament, one by the Presidency and the head of the regulator appointed by the Cabinet.

The ministry’s proposal envisions the current members of the regulator seeing out their terms, with the most recent appointments being made redundant, Roussinov said.
Such a move, however, would leave the Cabinet open to court action from the regulator members being sacked for the early termination of their contracts, Kapital weekly said.