According to the latest “Nations in Transit” report of Freedom House issued on Tuesday, Bulgaria continues to be classified as a semi-consolidated democracy.

Bulgaria's overall democracy score is 3.25, registering a minor improvement from last year when it stood at 3.29 and returning to its level from 2014.

The ratings of Freedom House are based on a scale from 1 to 7 where 1 represents the highest level of democratic progress.

The overall democracy score is based on the average of the scores achieved in seven categories.

Bulgaria recorded its best score in the electoral process and civil society categories (2.25), while its worst performance is in the corruption category (4.25).

The scores in the remaining four categories are the following: local governance (3), national democratic governance and judicial framework and independence (3.5), independent media (4).

Compared to last year, Bulgaria made progress in only one of the categories – national democratic governance, with its score improving by 0.25. In the remaining six categories, Bulgaria retained its scores from last year.

In all seven categories, Bulgaria is under the average scores achieved by the countries from the region of Central and Eastern Europe.

The trend for the average democracy score of the 29 countries from the Balkans, Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia featured in the report to decline every year since 2004 has been sustained in 2015.

The largest score decline was in Macedonia, where scores worsened in six of the categories, with the second-largest decline recorded in Tajikistan.