At its meeting, the parliamentary committee on culture and media adopted first reading the Bill to amend the Gambling Act. It was introduced by Yordan Tsonev (DPS) and Temenuzka Petkova (GERB-SDS), and one of the main proposals is to limit the advertising of gambling games. Before that, the budget committee also said "yes" of the foreseen changes in the law.
The bill was supported in the culture committee with ten votes “for“ and no votes “against“ and “abstained“.
„Restricts substantial income that comes from media services. "You know that media services need financial sustainability, financial security," said Anna Tanova from the Association of Bulgarian Radio and Television Broadcasters (ABRO), who was present at the meeting.
In her words, the media are placed in a very serious competitive environment, and a large percentage of revenues are increasingly going to foreign media. Ana Tanova noted that the National Council for Self-Regulation (NSC) is currently developing additional measures for self-regulation in relation to advertising. She added that if the information channel about where the legal gambling is is stopped, there will be an outflow of part of the users to illegal gambling.
„I think that we can hardly draft the best law in the last days of the National Assembly. This problem can hardly be covered in its entirety. In my opinion, even gambling halls are not as big a problem as online gambling, which is far more accessible, far more large-scale,” said the chairman of the commission Toma Bykov (GERB-SDS). According to him, the problem with the media is not easy to solve, as the facts are that a part of their income actually comes from gambling companies.
At today's meeting, Acting Minister of Culture Nayden Todorov presented the priorities of the Ministry of Culture for the next two months.
Bulgarian museums, galleries and libraries are not competitive with any, even in the region, due to the fact that we have not legally provided for them the opportunity to carry out activities, to be financially supported to carry out activities, Nayden Todorov pointed out. He noted that every time they have to apply for projects based on the principle of private organizations.
„Actually, the instruments that the state has are not functioning and the reason lies in the Ministry of Culture and the Parliament. I think that together we can correct this thing”, said Todorov.
For the performing arts, the acting culture minister pointed out that the activity is subsidized “extremely actively and immediately”. No cultural institute knows what funds they will have in a month or two, because it depends on their income at that moment, he added.