Bulgaria’s media regulator to hold new procedure to elect head of Bulgarian National Television
The Council for Electronic Media (CEM), Bulgaria’s statutory regulator of the electronic media, is to hold a new procedure to elect a director-general of public broadcaster Bulgarian National Television (BNT) after a July 15 special meeting failed to choose a candidate.
This leaves Emil Koshlukov, whose three-year term as head of BNT expired close to three years ago, in place as acting director-general of the public broadcaster.
The July 15 vote was the latest episode in a saga that has been prolonged by regularly-delayed court action in connection with CEM’s previous attempt, in 2022, to elect a head of BNT. In that previous attempt, no candidate got the required majority of at least three out of five votes of the members of CEM.
On the basis of a June 2025 Supreme Administrative Court ruling, the same eight candidates from 2022 were put to the vote at the July 15 2025 meeting, with the court requiring that CEM members either vote for or against, without the option of abstaining.
The eight candidates were Koshlukov, former sports reporter Sasho Yovkov, sports reporter Vassilena Matakeva, former head of news at bTV Venelin Petkov, BNT Kurdzhali correspondent Krassimir Angelov and university broadcaster Svetlana Bozhilova.
The voting results in all three rounds on July 15 were identical.
Koshlukov got one vote in favour and four against, and Petkov, two votes in favour and three against.
All the rest got five votes against.
The vote in favour of Koshlukov came from Galina Georgieva, who was elected by Parliament to CEM after being nominated by Boiko Borissov’s GERB. The two votes in favour of Petkov came from Prolet Velkova (nominated by Democratic Bulgaria) and CEM chairperson Simona Veleva (nominated by We Continue the Change).
In the new procedure, the deadline for applications for the post is September 12, with hearings by CEM on October 14 and 15 and the election to be held on October 16.
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