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A Content Analysis of Media Reporting About Irregularities and Fraud with Funds of the European Union

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OPEN SOCIETY Report INSTITUTE SOFIA Sofia, 21 May 2020 MEDIA AND CRIMINAL POLICY: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF MEDIA REPORTING ABOUT IRREGULARITIES AND FRAUD WITH FUNDS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION This study has been carried out under the project titled ● Georgi Angelov, “Analysis of the Media Coverage of the Cases for Em- expert, data gathering bezzlement of EU Funds”, implemented by the Legal Programme of Open Society Institute – Sofia Foundation The report was edited by Daniela Dokovska. and financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The content of this report is the sole responsibility of the author and by no means can this document The survey was carried out in the period from September be regarded as reflecting the official position of the 2019 to April 2020 by the following team: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the ● Ivanka Ivanova, PhD, Netherlands or of Open Society Institute – Sofia Project Manager, author Foundation. ● Valentina Kazanska, expert, data gathering ISBN 978-954-2933-61-8 CONTENTS Summary 2 Challenges to the media in reporting irregularities and fraud Description of the study 2 with EU funds 16 Context of the study 4 Media coverage of crimes involving EU funds 19 Irregularities, cases of particular Challenges to the criminal policy public interest and fraud against fraud with EU funds 22 with EU funds from the point Conclusion 25 of view of institutions 5 Appendix. Media publications Media reporting of irregularities about irregularities and fraud with EU funds and fraud with EU funds 11 in the period 2017-2019 27 © 2020 Open Society Institute – Sofia. All rights reserved. OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE – SOFIA REPORT, 21 May 2020 Summary his report is based on content analysis of me- sons were found, the five of them related to cases Tdia reporting about irregularities and fraud of no significant media interest: each of these cas- with EU funds in Bulgaria in the period 2017-2019 es has been covered in just one news item. At the as well as on interviews with experts: journalists same time investigations and pre-trial proceedings, and lawyers. The study reveals that the media un- which have been instituted based on media report- cover and publish information about a small num- ing for fraud with EU funds, have not been followed ber of irregularities and fraud with EU funds, which by a clear institutional response: it is not possible is due, on the one hand, to the deteriorated state to find out whether the pre-trial proceedings have of the printed media and media freedom in the been brought to an end and what was established country and, on the other hand, to the decisions as a result. of law enforcement authorities as to whether and The study shows that the “cases of particular when to disclose information about ongoing inves- public interest” according to the Prosecution’s of- tigations. fice definition, the range of irregularities and fraud The Prosecutor’s Office classifies cases of fraud with EU funds that have attracted media attention with EU funds as “cases of particular public interest” and the pre-trial proceedings about which the Pros- (CPPI) and orders preliminary review or institutes ecutor’s Office actively publishes information do not pre-trial proceedings in most of the cases uncovered coincide. The concept of “cases of particular public by the media. However, in the 3 years period covered interest” is not adequately reflecting the dynamics by the study there are very few media texts about in the law enforcement effectiveness in countering court trials for fraud with EU that were brought to fraud with EU funds and therefore should be either an end. Only five news items about convicted per- abandoned or reconsidered. Description of the study he study has been carried out under the project ti- media: the media ought to be specialized as current news Ttled Analysis of the Media Coverage of the Cases for provider, to report daily national news, not be related Embezzlement of EU Funds, financed by the Ministry of to one and same owner, to have an online archive with Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and free access dating back three years that also allows for implemented by the Legal Programme of Open Society easy searching. Based on these criteria, two newspapers Institute – Sofia Foundation in the period from Septem- and an information website were selected for monitor- ber 2019 to April 2020. ing: 24 chasa, Sega and Mediapool. Afterwards the news This study aims at establishing whether and to what items in the Bulgaria Sections of the selected media were extent the media are a factor for the uncovering and suc- subjected to thorough and chronological scanning: all cessful prosecution of cases of fraud with the EU funds news items in these sections were reviewed for each day in Bulgaria. To answer this question, the study shows the of 2017, 2018 and 2019 and the texts related to irregu- practical dimensions of the Prosecution’s Office concept larities or fraud with EU funds were identified. For the of “cases of particular public interest” (CPPI) – i.e. which purposed of the study “irregularities” were defined as all cases draw the largest media attention and why, which ir- cases of violations of national legislation that occurred regularities and offences are most often reported by the in the management of public funds involving directly or media, when the law enforcement authorities react and indirectly EU Funds, and as “fraud” were defined all in- investigate the media allegations. stances of criminal offences with this respect. The method consisted in content analysis of news Afterwards the collected media texts were classified items published by three media in a three-year period. in separate individual cases. A numbered list of the iden- The following criteria were used to select the monitored tified cases and the related news items is enclosed in 2 OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE – SOFIA REPORT, 21 May 2020 the Appendix to this report. Two key criteria were used ways contain a clearly defined statement about a specific to define a case: the media text is referring to the same committed irregularity/fraud. For instance, in the media subject (the same alleged irregularity or fraud) and the text Bozukov tried to change the project ranking. His team same persons. Thus the “guest house” scandal from the says: It’s not true (24 chasa, 7.02.2017) it was not possible spring and summer of 2019 was divided into seven indi- to establish whether the newspaper refered to an alleged vidual cases: court case about the void methodology for irregularity or criminal offence (case No 44). In addition, determining the size of the penalties for offenders (case in cases that drew considerable media attention such as No 32), court trial of Alexander Manolev (case No 33), the repairs of Graf Ignatiev Street in Sofia (case No 59) general inspection of the guest houses by State Fund usually started as a “scandal”: the earliest news items re- Agriculture (SFA, case No 34), preliminary review of the flected public outrage due to the substandard and ugly guest houses owned by persons related to Elena Yonche- outcome of the repair works of a central street in Sofia va (case No 35), dismissal of Ivanka Mizova from manage- and it was not clear whether such actions resulted from a ment position of SFA (case No 36), guest houses owned failure to execute a contract, from a violation of the pro- by persons related to Mustafa Karadaya (case No 37) and curement procedure for the selection of a contractor or dismissal of Yanaki Chervenyakov from SFA (case No 38). from a crime (bribery, trading in influence or another act Based on the same criteria all news items about the re- that constitutes a crime). In this particular case eventu- pair works of Graf Ignatiev Street in Sofia and the follow- ally the law enforcement authorities established infor- up trial of the Deputy Mayor E. Krusev were considered as mation about one crime committed and an indictment only one case (case No 59). was submitted to the court. For this reason this case has After the individual cases were identified, the on- been classified in the study as one committed crime, i.e. line archives of the three media were reviewed again by reflecting the point of view of the law enforcement au- searching for keywords related to each of the cases. This thorities. was necessary since it turned out that sometimes infor- The second problem with the classification of me- mation about irregularities and fraud with EU funds was dia texts into individual cases was that there were sev- included in other media sections that were not part of eral texts (three in one instance, two in another), where the initial review (for instance, in the Projects section of some elements of the story coincided but the texts did 24 chasa or the Business section of Mediapool). Thus the not stated explicitly that they were connected. There lists of media texts related to each identified case were were commom elements of the story in the news items completed. entitled: Sadjat dvama izmamili fond Zemedelie tche ot- glejdat domati za da poluchat evrosredstva (13.11.2018, The content of each media text was reviewed and the 24 chasa), Fermeri na sad za zloupotrebi s 450,000 BGN ev- information about each case was systematically present- ropomoshti (30.07.2019, 24 chasa) and Dvama obvineni za ed in a summary table, which helped tracking a number izmami s evropari za razvitie na selskite rayoni (21.08.2019, of variables.
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