According to the newest Freedom House report “Nations in Transit”, there is no consolidated democracy in any of the Balkans countries while four out of seven countries registered have recorded a decline in their democracy level. Kosovo, which scored 5.14, has been ranked amongst the countries with semi-consolidated authoritarian regime along with Armenia and Kyrgyzstan while Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), and Bosnia and Herzegovina are part of the so-called transitional government or hybrid regime. At the same time, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary and Romania are in the group of semi-consolidated democracies.
The report notes that Kosovo has recently benefited from an increase in independent news outlets and investigative journalism online, but media in the country continue to suffer from problems common to most of its neighbors, particularly pro-government bias at public broadcasters, self-censorship caused by editorial pressure from political leaders and private owners, and harassment or attacks on journalists that usually go unpunished.
The democracy scores and regime ratings are based on a scale of 1 to 7, with 1 representing the highest level of democratic progress and 7 the lowest. The 2015 ratings reflect the period January 1 through December 31, 2014.
