The parliament approved the right to opt out of indexation of mobile operators' prices, which is in the service of over 3 million consumers. The changes were voted on the second reading of three bills of the Electronic Communications Act, the Bulgarian National Radio reports.
The main topic of the debate was the protection of consumers in contracts with mobile operators and the application of the European Digital Services Act. The bill by Martin Dimitrov from the PP - DB aroused the widest interest, which proposed that in the event of a unilateral increase in prices by mobile operators, consumers would have the right to terminate their contract without penalty.
According to him, over 3 million subscribers will be able to take advantage of this right, and in the future the entry of more virtual operators is also expected:
"This is an important breakthrough, a good deed in the direction of people having more choice and more competition in Bulgarian society, being able to choose, to refuse and, accordingly, mobile operators knowing that you are not theirs for the entire period of two years".
The "Vazrazhdane" group also expressed support for the changes. MP Nikola Dimitrov stated that until now such a mechanism has only existed as a contractual practice:
"Let's make a longer period than three months, in which consumers can actually see how exactly all operators index prices, since we know that operators do not do it with the same percentage".
Bozhidar Bozhanov's proposal, which would have ended practices that impede the portability of telephone numbers, was not accepted. It prohibited mobile operators from refusing portability upon termination of a contract, regardless of which party initiated the termination.
Within the debate, Ivaylo Chorov from "Vazrazhdane" warned that some of the provisions hide insidious prerequisites for the introduction of legal censorship:
"This figure of a trusted sender practically turns into an online prosecutor who, at his own discretion, will be able to indicate:
"You are wrong, you are not following the main line of the party, you are not following the main line of society. You must be punished. A separate approved investigator is also created".