site.btaParliament Amends Electronic Communications Act on First Reading

At its regular sitting on Wednesday, the National Assembly adopted first-reading revisions to the Electronic Communications Act. The amendments were proposed by the Council of Ministers in view of Bulgaria’s commitments as an EU Member State to bring Bulgarian legislation in conformity with the requirements of Article 19 (Sanctions) of Regulation (EU) 2022/612 of the European Parliament and of the Council of April 6, 2022 on Roaming on Public Mobile Communications Networks within the Union (recast text).  

The violations of Regulation (EU) 2022/612 for which the amendments envisage sanctions, pose a significant public threat as committing them could affect many roaming users across the EU. The sanctions take into account the turnover of mobile network operators in order to be effective, proportionate and with a deterrence effect, the bill’s reasoning reads.

During the debate on the draft revisions, Nikola Dimitrov MP of Vazrazhdane described them as fair. In his words, the sanctions against mobile operators have not been increased in quite a few years, and everyone knows they sometimes overstep their rights.