President Rosen Plevneliev will put on the institutions’ agenda the issues related to the state of the media environment in Bulgaria. This may happen as early as the beginning of 2014 within the Month of political consultations, traditionally conducted by the Head of State. “A possible consensus on the necessity of securing additional regulation, of the print media for instance, will have a very strong impact,” Rosen Plevneliev commented.
Within the third discussion “Dialogue with the citizens”, devoted to the future of the Bulgarian media, the President said that putting the topics concerning the monopolies and the oligarchy on the public agenda is a success in itself and is the first step towards overcoming the problems.
“I am happy that we have already started speaking about an oligarchy – was this the case a couple of years ago? Now the time has come to change the rules,” the President commented and reiterated that the lack of openness and transparency is one of the main reasons for the citizens’ distrust in the institutions. The problem concerning the media concentration will be more easily resolved if the regulators perform their functions, Rosen Plevneliev added.
The Head of State called on the media to reach a consensus on implementing a single Ethics Code by all media. “The media should seek and tell the truth, because the truth cannot divide the nation,” Rosen Plevneliev was adamant before the participants in the forum, in which more than 250 representatives of the media, of the nongovernmental sector, diplomats, citizens and civil organizations took part.