site.btaDemocracy in Nations in Transit Region Drops for 20th Consecutive Year in 2023, Bulgaria Registers Slight Increase

Democratic governance in the Nations in Transit region declined for the 20th consecutive year in 2023, a report of the Freedom House non-profit organization says.

The continued assault on basic freedoms by Eurasian autocracies and the deterioration of democratic institutions in countries ranked as Hybrid Regimes - those with a mix of autocratic and democratic features - easily outweighed the modest gains by European democracies in 2023. Of the 29 countries covered in the report (Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, North Macedonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan), 10 suffered declines in their Democracy Score, while just five earned improvements. 

Freedom House’s report says that a geopolitical reordering is underway in the region stretching from Central Europe to Central Asia. Moscow’s ongoing attempt to destroy Ukraine and the Azerbaijani regime’s inhumane conquest of Nagorno-Karabakh demonstrated once again the deadly consequences of autocracy’s expansion. These and other events in recent years have accelerated a geopolitical reordering in the region, with countries sorting themselves into two opposing blocs: those committed to a liberal, democratic order and those that violently reject it.

Freedom House rates the democracy in the countries in the region on a seven-point scale. According to it, countries with a score of 1.00 to 2.00 are considered Consolidated Autocracies; countries with a score of 2.01 to 3.00 are Semi-Consolidated Autocracies; countries with scores of 3.01 to 4.00 are Hybrid/Transitional Regimes; those with scores of 4.01 to 5.00 are Semi-Consolidated Democracies; and countries with scores of 5.01 to 7.00 are Consolidated Democracies.

In 2023, Bulgaria's score is 4.54, which puts this country in the group of Semi-Consolidated Democracies. Bulgaria's score has improved since 2022 when it stood at 4.50.

According to Freedom House, the rest of the Semi-Consolidated Democracies are Poland, Romania and Croatia.

In Romania and Bulgaria, years of slow, painstaking work to improve the efficacy and independence of judicial and prosecutorial systems proved successful in 2023: Bulgaria’s ruling coalition removed the long-controversial chief prosecutor through proper legal channels, and the Romanian government revised its legal framework in what the European Commission praised as “a comprehensive overhaul”, Freedom House’s report further says.