The International Press Institute (IPI) and the Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC) have released today the Media Capture Monitoring Report for Bulgaria, the fifth publication in our series assessing media capture across Europe. This report examines Bulgaria’s compliance with the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), which came into effect in May 2024, establishing new standards for protecting media independence and diversity within the European Union.
Bulgaria’s prolonged political instability, combined with entrenched corruption and significant levels of media concentration, present major challenges to securing an independent and pluralistic media landscape.
Despite legal guarantees of independence, political interference has been rife in public media, while the integrity of the media regulator has long been questioned. Meanwhile efforts to tighten up rules on state advertising following a scandal around how EU funds were distributed to media in the past, fall far short of the requirements set out in the EMFA.
This report explores the opportunities and challenges posed by the EMFA for improving Bulgaria’s media environment, including strengthening regulatory independence and public service media governance, increasing ownership transparency, strengthening safeguards for media pluralism and guaranteeing the fair distribution of state funds.
The European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), in effect since May 2024, requires Member States to reform national media laws to combat media capture. EMFA aims to protect media independence by establishing safeguards for media regulators and public service media, ensuring ownership transparency, maintaining media pluralism, and preventing the misuse of state resources to influence media.
This Bulgaria report is part of a broader series covering seven EU countries—Bulgaria, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. These reports serve as vital resources for media rights organizations, policymakers, and advocates dedicated to monitoring and fostering media freedom across the EU.
The report is available here.
The project page can be accessed here.