The Communications Regulation Commission (CRC) notified the European Commission (EC) of a Draft market analysis of the market for transit services in the fixed public telephone networks, after conducting a public consultation.

It is expected that within a month the EC will give its opinion on the draft analysis and then the CRC will adopt a final decision.

The Communications Regulation Commission (CRC/the commission) has launched a public consultation procedure under Art. 37 of the Law on Electronic communications (LEC) on Reference Interconnection Offer (reference offer) submitted by the Bulgarian Telecommunications Company AD (BTC).

In order to create the necessary conditions for development of competition as well as in relation to the market analyses carried out, CRC maintained the obligations imposed on BTC of transparency, non-discrimination and cost orientation; also the terms for interconnection should be developed in a reference offer approved by the commission. The draft reference offer proposed by the incumbent contains amendments arising from both legislation and agreements reached in the sector.

The reference offer should reflect the conditions under which BTC will provide interconnection to its network, and regulatory intervention in relation to these conditions should be focused on issues on which the undertakings in the sector cannot reach an agreement. In this regard, in order to clarify to a maximum extent enterprises’ position within the consultations, CRC raises key issues which are essential for determining the final position of the regulator on the reference offer. Also, public consultations are aimed at establishing if in the draft submitted by the BTC there are other disputable issues that could lead to deterioration of the conditions for development of competition in the sector.