site.btaParliament Adopts 2017 Activity Report of Council for Electronic Media

Sofia, May 10 (BTA) - Parliament on Thursday adopted the 2017 activity report by the Council for Electronic Media following a debate on the freedom of speech in the country. The vote was 85-38 with 38 abstentions.

According to the report in 2017 the Council monitored a total of 28,491 hours of radio and TV broadcasts on 161 programmes.

The report highlights the election of a new director of the Bulgarian National Television under a new four-stage procedure; the Council's mediating role in a copyright dispute between the Bulgarian National Radio and MUSICAUTOR and the monitoring of the election campaign for the general elections between February 24 and March 26 2017.

Alexander Simov (BSP for Bulgaria) said that the report was a bureaucratic text full of dry statistics, lacked any conclusions and did not acknowledge Bulgaria's ranking at 111th place in the latest Reporters without Borders report.

Toma Bikov (GERB) said that Bulgaria was ranked 111th because seven Bulgarian newspapers are owned by one MP and that there is no censorship in state-owned media.

Pavel Shopov of United Patriots said that the debate was between incumbent and opposition and that the unreformed media need radical reforms.

Velislava Krasteva of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms said that four months ago together with fellow MPs Delyan Peevski, Yordan Tsonev and Hamid Hamid she had submitted a bill which sheds light on media ownership and funding. "I believe that our bill will be supported by all parliamentary groups,' she said.