Ministry of Transport, Information Technology and Communications

The Deputy Minister of Transport, Information Technology and Communications Mr. Valery Borissov met today the Commissioner for digital economy and society Günther Oettinger on the occasion of the trilateral project “Cross-Border Empowerment of Next Generation Access National Networks” between Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia. The talks were held before the meeting of the Council of Ministers for Telecommunications. The purpose of the meeting was to present the preparation stage of the initiative, the goals and the expected results for the three countries.

Deputy Minister Valery Borissov assured the Commissioner for digital economy and society that the project has a major importance for the least developed region of the European Union, and that the project idea is supported by the government. Commissioner Oettinger thanked for the activity of the Bulgarian side and its neighbors and expressed his satisfaction with the compliance of the project with the priorities of the Digital Single Market Strategy of the European Commission. The Minister of Communications and Information Society of Romania Mr. Marius Bostan also participated in the meeting.

The member countries must have a more independent telecommunication policy depending on the national specifics – that was the statement of the Deputy Minister of Transport, Information Technology and Communications Mr. Valery Borissov during the Council of Ministers for Telecommunications, which was held today. According to his words the focus should be on the regulation of the access to the communication services instead of regulation of the technology.

“Our dependency to the connectivity to fixed or mobile networks is more and more outlined in modern conditions”, said Deputy Minister Valery Borissov. He clearly stressed that if we want all citizens and companies to benefit equally from the digital economy the high speed deployment should not be an end in itself, but should reflect the demand by the business and the users. As an example the Deputy Minister gave the demand for high-speed information services, which varies in the different regions of the EU. “If we determine in advance high speed limits that should be reached for a certain period of time, this may not respond to the specific needs in the cities and in the less populated regions at that time” he said. According to Mr. Valery Borissov there could be situations where high speed wireless or fixed connectivity is available; significant resources for their deployment have been invested, but the use is lacking due to different factors, including demographic ones, price accessibility, digital capabilities, etc.

The Bulgarian position during the Council of Ministers was in support of the simplifying of the rules for state aid in economically unattractive regions of the EU.

Deputy Minister Valery Borissov added that it is necessary to decrease the regulation of the telecoms and to simplify the rules for their activity in order not to put administrative barriers for the innovations in the sector.

During the informal working dinner of the ministers on the digital skills issues on December 10th, Deputy Minister Valery Borissov informed, that in order to overcome the lack of educated specialists, Bulgaria has carried out the biggest in scale training of the employees responsible for e-government systems in the administration. IT manuals for on the most wanted IT profiles were created and are accessible online.

The Bulgarian experience in digital skills building in the educational system was shared. During the academic year 2014-2015 in Bulgaria an online national digital skills assessment of students in the 10th grade was held for the first time. 1000 students from 15 schools from places in 5 regions: Sofia, Smolyan, Gabrovo, Russe and Pazardzhik participated in this phase. This evaluation form was well accepted by the students, the professors and the school management. The objectivity of the assessment was guaranteed by randomly generating the questions in the tests and the choice of a practical task. The average success result of the assessment held in June 2015 was 64%. During the academic year 2015-2016 it is foreseen to broaden the scope by including 20 000 students from schools in every region of the country.