Bulgaria

01Media is on the agenda

A year after the European Media Freedom Act became fully applicable in August 2025, Bulgaria has yet to make any tangible progress on its implementation. A new government has committed, at least on paper, to the legislative changes needed to bring the country in line with the regulation, but no actual amendments have been adopted so far. At the same time, several developments over the past year raise questions about whether that commitment will be translated into practice.

The current reform push follows a period of acute political turmoil. In December 2025, a massive wave of protests swept through the country and forced the coalition government of Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov to resign. The election that followed in April 2026, the country’s eighth vote in five years, broke a long-running pattern: the newly formed party of former president Rumen Radev took 44.6 percent of the vote¹. This decisive result, one that the country has not seen in years, allowed his party to secure 131 seats in the 240-seat Parliament and form a majority government.

Radev ran on an anti-corruption ticket and vowed to rid the country of endemic graft. When his cabinet published its programme² for the remainder of its term, it listed media among its priorities, unlike previous governments. The 200-page document pledges to “recover” the media industry through a package of changes to the law covering transparency of media ownership, the independence of public service media, protection of editorial independence, transparency in the allocation of state funds for advertising, and protection of journalistic sources and investigative journalism. It also promises to “amend and supplement the Radio and Television Act in accordance with EMFA”, “ensuring media pluralism, editorial independence and transparency of the ownership of media service providers”. The deadline for adopting those changes is the end of 2027, according to the programme.

The practical work was delegated to yet another working group, established by the Ministry of Culture, which is in charge of media policy. It brings together representatives of state institutions, the Council for Electronic Media (CEM), public service media, professional organizations and academia. According to the Ministry, the group “has reviewed the national legal framework and prepared a consolidated bill”. Previous working groups established to examine and coordinate EMFA implementation have been disbanded and recreated amidst repeated election disruption and changes in government over the past few years.

In a statement, the ministry acknowledges gaps in the current framework across a wide range of topics, including “editorial independence, protection of journalistic sources and confidential communications, the status and resources of the media regulator, the independent functioning of public service media, transparency of media ownership and state advertising, and the framework for assessing media concentrations”, all of which were identified as areas of concern in the previous two reports.³ It also says that a “mechanism is being developed to assess the impact of certain concentrations on media pluralism and editorial independence”.

At the same time, the ministry has not set out what those changes might involve, and no concrete proposals have been made public. The “effective implementation of the EMFA”, however, the ministry argues, depends on “clear division of responsibilities among the relevant authorities, effective coordination, adequate resources, and reliable, up-to-date information on media ownership and public funding”, which it describes as one of the “main practical challenges.”

The working group was due to conclude its work and finalize the bill by the end of September 2026, but no information has been released before the issue of this report in mid-October 2026. The ministry expects the changes to be adopted by the end of the year, the statement reads.

One important development for Bulgarian journalism, albeit not EMFA-related, was the adoption of the amendments⁴ offering protection against lawsuits designed to intimidate critics. The Parliament approved law changes two months after the European Commission launched in July an infringement procedure⁵ against Sofia for failing to align its national legislation with the anti-SLAPP directive.

At the end of 2025, amendments to anti-trust legislation⁶ allowed for an in-depth examination of concentrations where an assessment is required from a specialized state authority legally mandated to regulate the relevant sector. No corresponding amendments were made to the Radio and Television Act, however, so CEM has no power to carry out such evaluations in the media market.

Overall, the current cabinet appears to show more political will to align Bulgarian legislation with the EMFA than its predecessors. Will alone, however, won’t be enough. The sector is plagued by structural problems that legislation cannot resolve on its own.

02New leadership, old problems

Public Service MediaEMFA Art. 5

Bulgarian National Television (BNT), the public broadcaster, has seen its first leadership change in years. In February 2026, CEM finally appointed a new director at BNT.⁷ The change came after protracted court disputes that allowed Emil Koshlukov, the previous head of the broadcaster, to remain in the post even though his term expired in 2022. The new director, Milena Milotinova, worked as a BNT reporter and news anchor between 1990 and 2001. Like her predecessor, she later moved into politics, serving as a member of parliament between 2001 and 2005.

Because Koshlukov’s tenure had been marred by concerns over biased news coverage and the broadcaster’s independence, the change of leadership was broadly welcomed. The goodwill, however, has not gone untested. In September 2026, the removal of Georgi Angelov from his position of host of a long-running history programme and a foreign-affairs talk show raised questions about the reasons behind it. BNT cited “programming changes”⁸ and denied that any BNT journalists would be dismissed.

Politicians have added their own pressure. In August 2026, Deputy Prime Minister Ivo Hristov used an interview with BNT,⁹ where he used to work as a TV host around a decade ago, to share his views on media freedom.

“The oligarchy has captured the Bulgarian media. I’m afraid that this is also being felt in public service media. BNT is one of the last places where certain principles are respected and upheld. It is difficult for me to say the same about Bulgarian National Radio,” he said. His remarks drew criticism from both the journalistic community and opposition parties. CEM issued a statement¹⁰ condemning them, saying that “it’s unacceptable for high-ranking government representatives to pit the two public broadcasters against each other”.

Media Pluralism and Political InfluenceEMFA Art. 6 & 22

The proximity of media and politics is becoming more visible in the run-up to the presidential election scheduled for October 25. Iliana Iotova, Radev’s former vice president and herself a former journalist, who is currently serving as president, is among the main contenders. She nominated Kiril Valchev, the current head of the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA), as her running mate for vice president.¹¹ Rather than stepping down from his post at the public service news agency, he took leave for the duration of the campaign.

Iotova and her main competitor, Andrey Gyurov, announced their bids for the presidency with the backing of so-called nomination committees, groups of public figures who endorse a particular candidate. Their respective committees include a number of working journalists. Briefly among them was a political reporter for the public broadcaster who covers the presidency. She promptly withdrew her support, citing ethical reasons. These instances raised doubts¹² about journalists’ objectivity in their work, given their stated political leanings.

In the meantime, fears about pressure on newsrooms remain a key concern. The most prominent case involves bTV, one of the leading private TV channels in the country.

At the end of 2025, Maria Tsantsarova, a well-known presenter recognized for her probing questioning of politicians across all major parties, was removed from the air. Amid the anti-government protests that engulfed Bulgaria in December, she had appeared on air sipping from a mug with the slogan “Time to Make Real Change”. Initially, the channel denied that she had been dismissed, saying it was negotiating a different role for her. The absence of Tsantsarova¹³ from the screen raised concerns about political interference and prompted a protest¹⁴ in front of bTV’s building in her support. Shortly after that, bTV announced that Tsantsarova had been dismissed¹⁵ for “unprecedented violations” of the broadcaster’s internal editorial standards and accused her of expressing her political views during the talk show. Stoyan Georgiev, an investigative reporter, also left the station in solidarity¹⁶.

The case proved not to be isolated. In July 2026, leaked chat conversations¹⁷ showed that Asen Ivanov, head of News, Current Affairs and Sports at bTV, instructed staff to withdraw a confirmed interview with Martin Atanasov, a 19-year-old who launched a digital platform that tracks and analyzes public healthcare spending in the country. Ivanov wrote in a chat that the guest speaker would not make it on air “as long as it depends on me”¹⁸. Ivanov later said that the guest had engaged in “a deliberate provocation and showed disrespect toward a television host”, a reference to a December 2025 appearance in which Atanasov had given a substitute presenter a mug carrying the same “Time to Make Real Change” slogan as the one used by Tsantsarova.

Those worrisome examples highlight why the EMFA matters for Bulgaria. Each of its central obligations exposes a weakness the country has been unable to address on its own. The next few months will be indicative. The publication of the working group’s amendments, their treatment of media ownership transparency and state advertising, and the timetable Parliament gives them will show whether the government intends to prioritize media freedom in the country or simply satisfy Brussels’ concerns on paper.

Regulatory AuthorityAVMSD Art. 30

In April 2026 Gabriela Naplatanova¹⁹, a CEM member appointed by the president in 2022, was elected chair of the regulator. She succeeded Simona Velena in the post and will serve a one-year term. In the summer CEM organised a public discussion²⁰ on editorial independence, bringing together representatives of the public broadcasters, media organisations, and observers.

While CEM’s budget increased to 1.98 million euros this year²¹, up from 1.76 million euros the previous year, its members continued to raise concerns about the regulator’s chronic underfunding which they say limits its ability to carry out the full scope of its responsibilities²².

Misuse of State FundsEMFA Art. 25

There are no significant changes in this area since the problems outlined in the 2025 Media Capture report. Although Bulgarian legislation requires transparency in the distribution of public funds, there are no specific rules governing the allocation of state advertising to media outlets. The lack of oversight raises concerns that public advertising budgets can be used to exert political and financial pressure on the press or to reward government-friendly publications. Small regional publications are especially vulnerable.

03Has the situation improved?

04Outstanding problems

Media regulatorsAVMSD Art. 30

The 2025 report found CEM’s appointment procedures politicised and its staffing, funding and administrative capacity inadequate. The Ministry of Culture now acknowledges the problem, but nothing has changed. The regulator also still lacks the power to assess media concentrations, because the Radio and Television Act was not amended alongside competition law.

Public service mediaEMFA Art. 5

BNT’s new director ends years in which the broadcaster was run by a director whose term had expired, but the rules for appointing public media heads have not changed, and funding still depends on annual government decisions. A host removal at BNT and the deputy prime minister’s remarks against public radio show how exposed the broadcasters remain, and the BTA director’s vice-presidential run, on leave rather than after resigning, blurs the line between the public news agency and politics.

Misuse of state fundsEMFA Art. 25

There is still no framework for the allocation of state advertising, which the 2025 report found to be untendered, confidential and unmonitored. The government’s programme promises transparency, but no proposal has been published.

Ownership transparency and pluralismEMFA Art. 6 & 22

Ownership disclosure rules remain weakly enforced, beneficial owners are often obscured, and the concentration in two conglomerates identified in 2025 has not been addressed. The dismissal of a leading bTV presenter and leaked messages showing a news director barring a guest raise serious concerns about editorial independence in private media.

Full disclosure: the author of this report works with the Association of European Journalists in Bulgaria.