Update April 2000: Bulgaria

The IS development in Bulgaria is in the forefront of public attention. Partly this is due to the continuing debate over the privatisation of the Bulgarian Telecommunication Company (BTC) and the prolonged negotiations with the potential buyers: the Dutch KPN and the Greek OTE. A lot of public attention has also been focussed on the selling of Channel 2 of the Bulgarian National Television to Balkan News Corporation (owned by Ruppert Murdock). There is also a heated public discussion over the licensing of second mobile telephone operator. Last but not least the attention of the general public on IS development was caught by the last year's debate over the licensing of Internet providers.

The above developments, some not yet completed, cannot be formally entered into particular IS promotional activity. They, however, show the media and the general public attentions towards IS issues.

As of the end of 1999 the State agency directly responsible to co-ordinate at the national level the IS development is the new Ministry of Transport and Communications which integrated the Committee of Posts and Telecommunications (CPT). The former chairman of the Committee Mr. Antoni Slavinski was appointed as Minister. As is known Mr. Slavinski has been personally responsible for IS developments as Vice-Chairman of the Co-ordination Council on IS at the Council of Ministers. He will retain these responsibilities in his new capacity of Minister. The transformation underlines the importance for the Bulgarian Government of all activities related to IS development in the country.

The biggest promotional event during the period January - March 2000 was the Internet Fiesta 2000: a large national coverage of festivities was settled related to IS in the framework of the international Fiesta 2000. The fiesta was initiated by the Internet Society - Bulgaria under the patronage of Ministry of Transport and Communications. It is significant that Internet Society - Bulgaria, an NGO (president Veni Markovski), which opposed strongly in the past to the state bodies policies on the issue of Internet licensing, and the new Ministry have closely co-operated to promote Internet and IS development. Many other organisations, companies and individuals had contributed also to the event success.

The Association for the Development of the Information Society (Chairman Prof. P. Barnev) continues to organise on monthly basis, national seminars on important issues related to IS development. Two seminars were organised during January-March 2000 covering healthcare in IS and Science and Information Society. BILD, the Bulgarian Institute for Legal Development (Head Dr. Nelly Ognyanova) organised a very successful seminar on "Public Administration and the Information Society".

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