Bulgarian Parliament elects Maxim Minchev to further term as head of news agency BTA

Bulgaria’s National Assembly elected on October 18, with support from all parties, Maxim Minchev to a further term as head of state-owned news agency BTA.

BTA was founded in 1898 by decree of Tsar Ferdinand.

Some years after Bulgaria emerged from under the communist regime, in 1994 the law on the agency was changed by Parliament to deem it an independent, self-supporting agency where the only state intervention was the voting of a subsidy by the National Assembly and the fact that Parliament appoints its director-general.

Minchev (64) was first named director-general of BTA in 2003. He has also served as the president of the Black Sea and Balkan Association of News Agencies, Secretary General of ABNA and BSANNA, council member and press director of the Atlantic Club of Bulgaria.

He headed the press centre during US president Bill Clinton’s November 1999 visit to Bulgaria and during Pope John Paul II’s May 2002 visit to Bulgaria.

In November 2016, Minchev was elected secretary-general of the News Agencies World Council.

Minchev’s career in journalism has included working for Bulgarian National Radio, Radio Free Europe and a number of newspapers and magazines. He is the author of 11 books.

Minchev has been instrumental in creating the annual meetings of Bulgarian media abroad, held in a range of different countries.

(Photo: Vassia Atanassova-Spritia)

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