{"id":2519,"date":"2017-07-11T12:54:27","date_gmt":"2017-07-11T09:54:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/?p=2519"},"modified":"2017-07-11T12:54:27","modified_gmt":"2017-07-11T09:54:27","slug":"decline-and-fall-of-media-freedom-in-central-and-eastern-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/decline-and-fall-of-media-freedom-in-central-and-eastern-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"Decline and Fall of Media Freedom in Central and Eastern Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"34885294342_3970a94014_z\"<\/a>When you follow closely the evolution of the media environment across Central and Eastern Europe, sooner or later you inevitably start asking yourselves if you are not watching the same movie over and over again. The cast, the directors, the scriptwriters, and the budgets are different in line with the local economic and political conditions. The plots, however, overlap almost entirely, and once the movie is over, you are usually left with a painfully bitter taste in your mouth.
\nTo test the validity of this statement, you simply need to observe the major developments in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic \u2013 five countries of similar sizes and recent historical experiences which are now full-fledged members of the European Union (EU). These countries are also alike in terms of the challenges they face, namely intimate relations between politics and business, incessant high-profile corruption which eats away from the already meagre trust in states institutions, and a plethora of media which create an illusion of pluralism but in fact belong to a handful of influential politicians and businesspeople \u2013 typically with a shady past (or present).
\nContrary to common sense, the media environment in these five post-communist countries has deteriorated dramatically since they joined the EU. According to Nikoleta Daskalova, a media expert with the Media Democracy Foundation in Bulgaria, the situation took a particularly negative turn after the beginning of the financial crisis in 2007, which turned the media sector (and virtually any other industry) upside down. Daskalova describes the substantial changes in the Bulgarian media sector, many of which are also present in the other four countries: ever-decreasing advertising revenues, ever-increasing political dependencies, the withdrawal of foreign media owners, dramatically diminishing print circulation, and intensive reader migration to digital media.
\n\u201cIn this context, many of the media, especially the press, turn into a cheaper and accessible instrument in the hands of local actors with political and business interests,\u201d says Daskalova. \u201cAll this opens the door to trading in influence, interference with editorial content, self-censorship, unregulated deals, media racketeering. There emerges an acute media appetite for survival through even more commercial content, disregard for ethical standards, hate speech, operations aimed at discrediting public figures and civil organizations, and so on. Under the conditions of market stagnation and dependence on external forms of influence, the media find it very difficult to retain their autonomy. This situation does not benefit pluralism but the aggressive power of the monopoly-based status quo.\u201d
\nHow does Bulgaria\u2019s EU membership matter in this context? \u201cThe EU membership does not necessarily give effective mechanisms for overcoming the problems,\u201d says Daskalova. \u201cThe EU institutions are fully aware of and have criticized the local risks for media freedom and pluralism, but until now they have followed a cautious policy of non-intervention.\u201d
\nThe media landscape in numbers<\/strong>
\nAccording to the World Press Freedom Index, published annually by the Reporters Without Borders, of the five countries analyzed here, Bulgaria has seen the greatest decline in media freedom. Whereas it ranked 34th out of 158 countries in the 2003 Index, Bulgaria has experienced a continuous decline since 2007, landing 113th out of 180 countries in 2016 \u2013 the country\u2019s worst performance ever. Noteworthy, Bulgaria came last among the EU Member States.
\nEven though Bulgaria went up four places in this year\u2019s Index, its media sector continues to face numerous difficulties. In fact, Bulgaria\u2019s higher ranking this year is misleading, since it received a lower score than the one it got last year \u2013 35.01 and 34.46, respectively. This paradox suggests that Bulgaria\u2019s upward movement resulted not from a genuine improvement in the media climate in the country but from its deterioration in other countries.
\nThe unenviable situation in which the Bulgarian media find themselves is also evident from the country\u2019s performance in the Freedom of the Press reports, compiled annually by Freedom House. While in 2002 and 2003 they were described as \u201cfree\u201d, the Bulgarian media have consistently been designated as \u201cpartly free\u201d since 2004. While they have varied over the years, the country\u2019s scores indicate a decline in media freedom.
\nThe media trends in Hungary are markedly negative as well. Between 2002 and 2010, the country consistently ranked in top 30 of the World Press Freedom Index. Since Viktor Orb\u00e1n returned as prime minister in 2010, however, the clouds hanging over the media are acquiring a greyer tone. As a result, the country dropped from 40th in 2011\/2012 to 71st this year. The negative implications for the media after Orb\u00e1n\u2019s return to power are further reflected in the Freedom of the Press reports. Whereas between 2002 and 2011 they were considered \u201cfree\u201d, in 2012 the Hungarian media moved to the \u201cpartly free\u201d category.
\nPoland\u2019s performance in the two rankings is more than curious. In 2006, two years after its accession to the EU, Poland ranked 60th in the World Press Freedom Index. It kept climbing up the Index until 2015 when it came 18th \u2013 the country\u2019s best result so far. Nevertheless, it landed 47th in 2016, and this year it left top 50, occupying a position similar to the position it had in 2005. The sudden drop over the past two years coincided with the return to power of Jaroslaw Kaczy\u0144ski\u2019s Law and Justice Party. Although he conceded the premier\u2019s office to Beata Szydlo, Kaczy\u0144ski retains a key role in Polish politics. The current government\u2019s actions toward the media have a negative impact on the country\u2019s standing in the Freedom House reports. The negative developments reached a peak this year when the Polish media were designated as \u201cpartly free\u201d for the first time in the history of the reports.
\nAfter it landed 70th in the World Press Freedom Index in 2004 and 2005, Romania has moved upwards. Its occasional steps back notwithstanding, it has been part of top 50 for most of the time over the past six years. Of the five countries analyzed here, Romania is the only one in which the media have unchangeably been described as \u201cpartly free\u201d in the Freedom of the Press reports since 2002. At the same time, with a few minor exceptions, Romania has been improving its performance in the ranking since 2009.
\nOf the five Central and Eastern European countries, the Czech Republic has displayed the highest levels of media freedom. It has ranked in top 25 of the World Press Freedom Index for 14 years now. Noteworthy, it came as high as number five in the 2006 Index. Another proof of the more media-friendly conditions in the Czech Republic in comparison to the situation in the other four countries is the fact that it alone has never been part of the \u201cpartly free\u201d group in the Freedom House reports. Nevertheless, the political and economic developments in the country in recent years have raised concerns about the media\u2019s long-term well-being.
\nThis overview of the performance of Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic in the two most popular media freedom rankings shows that the media in Central and Eastern Europe find themselves in an unenviable situation. The main factors responsible for this state of affairs vary according to the specificities of each country, yet they can reasonably be summarized as a combination of political pressures and concentration of media ownership, along with the governments\u2019 use of state and EU money to ensure media comfort for themselves through non-transparent, preferential funding in the context of paper-thin advertising revenues.
\nMedia empires with politicians at the helm<\/strong>
\nPolitical interference in the media in Central and Eastern Europe is hardly surprising, given the decades of one-party rule and state censorship prior to 1989. Political influences over the media in the region have grown considerably in the past decade, as many of the foreign media companies have withdrawn from the market for economic reasons. As a result, some of the most respected traditional media have ended up in the hands of local politicians and businessmen who are all too willing to use them as an instrument for wielding political and economic power and settling accounts with ospponents. Even though official censorship is already in the history books, the governments in the region often strive to shape the media content, whether directly or indirectly.
\nThis vicious practice came in the limelight in the Czech Republic just a few weeks ago. In audio recordings leaked in May, Andrej s, the minister of finance and the second richest person in the country, and a reporter of the daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD), which Babis owned not long ago, are discussing a planned publishing of articles targeting Babis\u2019s political opponents<\/a>.\u00a0 The Czech finance minister is the owner of Agrofert \u2013 a food and agro-industrial group of over 250 companies, including media organizations such as one of the two most influential dailies in the country (Lidov\u00e9 Noviny), the most popular news website (iDnes.cz), one of largest private radio stations (Radio Impuls), and a music TV channel (\u00d3\u010dko). After the coalition partners of ANO (Babis\u2019s party) and the opposition passed a conflict-of-interests law, Babis transferred his business empire with 34,000 employees in 18 countries into a trust<\/a>.
\nBabis\u2019s media acquisitions are a wonderful example of the so-called \u201coligarchization\u201d of the media in the Czech Republic. Pavla Holcova, the founder of the Czech Center for Investigative Journalism and an associate with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), says that through his media, Babis can simultaneously \u201cinfluence politics [and] public opinion, and gain [\u2026] state and EU subsidies for his agricultural companies.\u201d
\nThe marriage between politics and media, along with non-transparent media ownership, undermines media freedom in Bulgaria as well. In recent years, the Reporters Without Borders and other international watchdog organizations have regularly mentioned the name of Delyan Peevski, a member of parliament and the owner of New Bulgarian Media Group. In their 2017 report, the Reporters Without Borders note that one of the reasons Bulgaria scores the lowest among all EU Member States is the combination of corruption and the collusion between media, politicians, and oligarchs, including Peevski, whose media group comprises six newspapers and controls nearly 80% of the print media distribution in the country.<\/a>
\nThe lack of transparency regarding media ownership and the concentration of media in the hands of politicians with business interests \u2013 or businesspeople with political aspirations \u2013 has drawn the attention of diplomats such as H.E. Xavier Lapeyre de Cabanes, a former French ambassador to Bulgaria.
\n\u201cThe press\u2019s role is to be critical toward any power, regardless of whether it is political or economic,\u201d de Cabanes said in an interview for the Bulgarian magazine Economist in February 2016 while he was still based in Sofia. \u201cUnfortunately, this press is dependent on the economic power of a person who is not only a very rich businessman but also a deputy in parliament. The public deserves to hear different opinions. True, there are many newspapers but if they all belong to the same media group and its owner determines the journalists\u2019 political line, then the Bulgarian press has a huge problem.\u201d
\nSince he took over as prime minister for a second time following the 2010 parliamentary elections in Hungary, Viktor Orb\u00e1n has directed considerable resources toward silencing critical voices.
\n\u201cIn October 2016, the Orb\u00e1n regime celebrated its biggest score after the suspension of both the print and online editions of Hungary\u2019s most influential daily newspaper, N\u00e9pszabads\u00e1g,\u201d the Reporters Without Borders wrote in their 2017 report on Hungary<\/a>.\u00a0 \u201cAlthough the Austrian owner of Mediaworks, the publishing company of N\u00e9pszabads\u00e1g, claimed that the suspension was based uniquely on financial grounds, it became apparent a few weeks later that the closure of the leading left-liberal daily newspaper was politically motivated. In November 2016, Mediaworks, at the time the biggest publisher of regional daily newspapers dominating more than 50% of that market, was sold to a company with close ties to the ruling party Fidesz and controlled by one of the Prime Minister’s closest advisors. With this acquisition, Fidesz gained control of a dozen of regional daily newspapers and other media outlets [\u2026] The rapacious appetite of the ruling party has no limits.\u201d
\nAlthough the Media Act in Hungary contains provisions aimed at preventing conflicts of interests and limiting the actions of politicians and political parties in the media sector, local politicians continue to exert influence over the media \u2013 either through media acquisitions or through economic levers such as tax policies and advertising revenues. This is one of the main takeaways from the 2016 Media Pluralism Monitor (MPM), which the Center for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom at the European University Institute published<\/a> in May.
\n\u201c[T]he current Fidesz government has a dominant footing over the commercial TV and radio markets, primarily through a network of indirect ownership among a group of Fidesz-linked business moguls and oligarchs,\u201d write the authors of the MPM report on Hungary. \u201cIn more recent years, the print market has been undergoing extensive changes, due to steady declines in revenues, a series of mergers and acquisitions, and the launch of new outlets established by Fidesz-linked companies. Since 2010, government-linked business affiliates have acquired or launched new print titles, despite declining revenues across the print sector.\u201d
\nThe Budapest Beacon, a Hungarian media outlet publishing in English, reported in May, based on information by 24.hu, that the business tycoon L\u0151rinc M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros owns a total of 192 newspapers in the country as well as the TV channel Echo TV<\/a>.\u00a0 The same piece mentioned rumors according to which M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros, currently the fifth richest person in Hungary, intends to buy some more county newspapers.
\nThe dangerously close relations between media, politics, and business undermine media freedom in Romania as well.
\n\u201cThe private media sector is dominated by Romanian businessmen with political ties or holdings in other industries, and these interests typically determine an outlet\u2019s editorial line,\u201d wrote Freedom House in their 2015 report on Romania.<\/a>\u00a0 \u201cIn July 2014, the news station Digi TV, owned by Romanian cable and satellite giant RCS-RDS, fired reporter Cristi Citre after he harshly criticized Prime Minister Victor Ponta on his personal Facebook page [\u2026] In September, television and radio host Robert Turcescu admitted that he was an undercover agent for the military intelligence service, raising concerns about possible media interference by the country\u2019s spy agencies.
\nThe media in Poland are not immune to political pressure, either. After forming a new government in 2015, the Law and Justice Party adopted measures that directly threaten the independence of the public service media. The government\u2019s growing intolerance toward independent and critical journalism, the excessive political meddling with the public service media, and the limitations on free speech in relation to Polish history and identity have created a fertile soil for self-censorship and polarization. It is for these reasons that this year Freedom House downgraded the Polish media from \u201cfree\u201d to \u201cpartially free\u201d for the first time since it started publishing its Freedom of the Press reports.
\n\u201cLegislation passed in December 2015 ended the mandates of Poland\u2019s public television and radio managers and empowered the treasury minister to appoint their successors,\u201d says this year\u2019s Freedom of the Press report on Poland<\/a>.\u00a0 \u201cBy April 2016, more than 140 employees at public outlets had resigned or been fired. The many personnel changes during the year encouraged self-censorship among reporters who remained at public outlets. As a result of the government\u2019s combative relationship with critical media, self-censorship also increased among journalists working for opposition-friendly private outlets.\u201d
\nMedia comfort through taxpayers\u2019 money<\/strong>
\nThe accession to the EU of many of the Central and Eastern European countries over the past 13 years carries unique benefits but they come at a certain price. Among the multiple unintended consequences, the distribution of EU funds to Member States as part of specific EU programs, which governments and municipalities then allocate to certain organizations, stands out with its particularly harmful effects on the health of the media systems in the region. Some of the funds reach the media in the form of subsidies, others are used for the purchase of advertising with regards to specific campaigns.
\nThe current model of allocation of EU funds puts the governments in a favorable position vis-\u00e0-vis the media because it allows them to buy media comfort for themselves. Those in power spend the EU money on activities aligned with their interests and aspirations, while the media, still recovering from the severe financial crisis, are competing with one another for a piece of the cake. Inevitably, this process leads to a decline in media freedom and a simultaneous increase in the media\u2019s dependence on the state.
\n\u201c[Amid] financial instability and market stagnation, the distribution of funds for the promotion of European projects turns the state into a major advertiser,\u201d explains Nikoleta Daskalova from the Media Democracy Foundation. \u201cThis increases the influence of ministries and municipalities over the national as well as the regional media which, in turn, often have to show loyalty by reducing their journalistic criticism toward those in power.\u201d
\nThe Reporters Without Borders have also called attention to this problem. According to the non-governmental watchdog organization, the Bulgarian government allocates EU funding to certain media \u201cwith a complete lack of transparency, in effect bribing editors to go easy on the government in their political reporting or refrain from covering certain problematic stories altogether.\u201d\u00a0 Between 2007 and 2012, the Bulgarian government spent BGN 71.6 million (EUR 36.6 million) on communication campaigns promoting EU operational programs without providing details on how it used this money<\/a>.
\nAudio recordings leaked in 2013 confirmed the existence of this vicious practice.<\/a>\u00a0 They contain a conversation between Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, then-Minister of Agriculture and Food Miroslav Naydenov, and then-Sofia City Prosecutor Nikolay Kokinov that took place on 15 April 2013. The recorded conversation revealed that the government was buying media comfort for itself by providing \u201ctechnical assistance\u201d in the form of EU money.
\nAccording to media reports from August 2012, the Bulgarian Ministry of Agriculture and Food set aside BGN 100,000 (EUR 51,000) for promotional activities related to the EU rural development program on Facebook, Twitter, and online forums during that year<\/a>.\u00a0 One half of the money was to be spent on Facebook and Twitter pages, the other half \u2013 on \u201cpublishing information about the rural development program in Internet forums.\u201d
\nThe allocation of EU money to media organizations is more than a timely topic, given Bulgaria\u2019s upcoming presidency of the Council of the EU (1 January 2018 \u2013 30 June 2018). It is precisely for this reason that earlier this year journalists and media experts representing the Association of European Journalists \u2013 Bulgaria, the Media Democracy Foundation, Foundation \u201cNational Council for Journalistic Ethics\u201d, and the Committee for Journalistic Ethics, among others, proposed a set of quantitative and qualitative criteria for the selection of media partners for communication activities in relation to the Bulgarian presidency of the Council of the EU<\/a>.\u00a0 The purpose of the proposed criteria is to provide for a transparent and equitable allocation of EU funds and prevent the creation of political dependencies so that the money can be used as effectively as possible and in the spirit of the EU\u2019s values and rules.
\nThe political dependencies of the media in Central and Eastern Europe have not resulted solely from the non-transparent allocation of EU funds. Instead, the governments in Hungary, Romania, and Poland use at least one of the following two instruments for shaping the media agenda: advertising through public money and control of the budgets of the public service media.
\nAccording to recent media reports, the government of Hungary spent 80% more on advertising in 2016 than it did in 2015, becoming the largest advertiser in the country.<\/a>\u00a0 The government\u2019s budget for TV advertising grew 140%, from HUF 2.6 billion (EUR 8.3 million) to HUF 6.3 billion (EUR 20.1 million).
\nIn Romania, the budget of the public service media surpasses the budgets of most private media<\/a>.\u00a0 In January this year, the government approved a budget of nearly EUR 300 million for the public radio and TV. This is a colossal sum for a country with a population of 21 million in which the entire advertising market amounts to EUR 350 million per year.
\nThis year\u2019s World Press Freedom Index suggests that the situation in Poland is also not very bright.<\/a>\u00a0 The Reporters Without Borders point to a pro-government tendency in the public service media throughout 2016. At the same time, government agencies ended their subscriptions to media close to the opposition, while state-owned companies cancelled their advertising contracts with them. Actions like these, which limit the room for public interest journalism, have even a more perverse effect in the context of the government\u2019s involvement in determining the composition of the management of the public radio and TV, as mentioned earlier.
\nJournalists and media experts agree that if the media climate in Central and Eastern Europe is to improve, the authorities and the various parties concerned should come up with new regulations to prevent political interference in the public service media and ensure a transparent and equitable spending of state money on media-related activities. As noted by Marius Dragomir, the director of the Center for Media, Data, and Society attached to the School of Public Policy at the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, this is \u201ca problem concerning the whole society as it involves taxpayer money\u201d and, thus, \u201c[p]eople should know where their money goes and be asked about that.<\/a>\u201d
\nGrounds for optimism<\/strong>
\nDespite the host of challenges the media in Central and Eastern Europe need to overcome, the situation is far from hopeless. The well-being of the media in this part of the world depends on the creation of an effective regulatory framework that sheds light on media ownership and the relations between politics and media, and on the principles and actions of individual journalists and editors.
\nThe Czech Republic is a case in point when it comes to the nuances in the media sector. The oligarchization of the media has mostly negative consequences, yet the concentration of media ownership does not necessarily imply a lack of pluralism. Marie Hermanova, a journalist and researcher in the areas of media and migration, says that along with Andrej Babis, there are some other powerful businesspeople who own media (such as Zden\u011bk Bakala) but this does not prevent these outlets from producing quality journalism in accordance with core professional standards.
\nThe Czech Republic further proves that public service media, which do not enjoy high levels of trust across the region, can do professionally solid and progressive journalism.
\n\u201cSomewhat paradoxically, one of the most progressive media lately is [the] Czech Radio [the public service broadcaster],\u201d explains Hermanova. \u201cThey have a team of data-journalist[s], they have great reporters, they just recently launched a new project called iRozhlas<\/a>\u00a0 [literally iRadio] \u2013 a special web project offering longer investigative and data-based pieces. A lot of journalists would say that once you worked for [the] Czech Radio. you don\u2019t really want to go anywhere else, because the standard is really high and they are trying to do their job \u2018BBC style\u2019.\u201d
\nIn Hermanova\u2019s words, the Czech Republic is home to many smaller independent media outlets, mostly online, which cover the entire political spectrum. Pavla Holcova from the Czech Center for Investigative Journalism adds that a lot of journalists, after they left some of the leading traditional media, launched their own projects that help maintain the media pluralism in the country. One example is the Reporter magazin<\/a>\u00a0 founded by Robert \u010c\u00e1sensk\u00fd, a former editor-in-chief of the daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) who left the newspaper after it was bought by Andrej Babis, who would later become finance minister. A similar media project is Echo24.cz <\/a>, whose team includes mostly journalists who used to work for Lidov\u00e9 Noviny, one of the most influential Czech dailies which now belongs to Babis.
\nDespite the unfavorable conditions for journalists and editors since Viktor Orb\u00e1n returned to power in 2010, there are still independent media outlets in Hungary, which strive to provide trustworthy information on matters of public interest. One well-known example is Direkt36<\/a> , which is part of the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). The team focuses on investigations related to corruption and abuse of power, which are published both in Hungarian and in English. Another popular outlet producing investigative journalism is Atlatszo.hu<\/a> , which is financed through private donations and does not accept support from state institutions and political parties. Similar to Direkt36, Atlatszo.hu publishes most of its stories in Hungarian as well as in English.
\nThese and other innovative investigative journalism projects across Central and Eastern Europe effectively challenge the status quo despite the financial troubles of the media sector and the various levers politicians use to put pressure on the media. By trying to fulfill their watchdog functions, these media illustrate what Nikoleta Daskalova from the Media Democracy Foundation seems to have in mind when she says she see grounds for optimism in Bulgaria mainly in the skills and attitudes of individual journalists. \u201cI hope that the journalistic guild will open up its reflexes for self-regulation and the protection of professional dignity [and] create a sense of community that is above the interests of the media,\u201d concludes Daskalova.
\nAuthor: Daniel Penev<\/strong>, a freelance journalist and a member of the Association of European Journalists \u2013 Bulgaria (AEJ-Bulgaria). He has just earned an M.A. in international relations from the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, Hungary.<\/em>
\nPicture: duncan c<\/a>
\n*<\/em>This text is created within the project of the Association of European journalists-Bulgaria called \u201cMediator 2: A bridge between journalism and society\u201d, funded by foundation \u201cAmerica for Bulgaria\u201d. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When you follow closely the evolution of the media environment across Central and Eastern Europe, sooner or later you inevitably start asking yourselves if you are not watching the same movie over and over again. The cast, the directors, the scriptwriters, and the budgets are different in line with the local economic and political conditions. The plots, however, overlap almost entirely, and once the movie is over, you are usually left with a painfully bitter taste in your mouth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13143,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[960],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-analyses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}