The European Commission has vowed to monitor media freedoms closely in Bulgaria, where rival political and business groups have taken control of top news organizations and used them to promote their interests.
Neelie Kroes, the European commissioner for telecommunications and the commission’s head of media policy and regulation, has said she will ask to meet with the relevant players when she travels to Sofia in September for a conference on broadband Internet.
Ms. Kroes said in an e-mail that she had monitored a growing number of reports of reduced freedom of the news media in Bulgaria.
The European Newspaper Publishers’ Association has also announced plans to investigate allegations of curbs on media freedom in Bulgaria, said Francine Cunningham, executive director of the organization. More than two decades after the fall of Communism, Bulgaria, which joined the European Union in 2007, is still struggling to build a strong and independent news media.
Reporters Without Borders , a group that defends media freedom worldwide, ranked Bulgaria 80th in its most recent World Press Freedom index , placing it last among E.U. members. The country’s ranking has declined steadily since 2006, when it placed 35th.
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