The European Commission will send a formal notification to Bulgaria that it has not fully transposed European regulations to combat racism and xenophobia.

Four other Member States – Belgium, Finland, Poland and Sweden – will receive such letters.

The aim is to ensure that serious acts of racism and xenophobia must be punished through effective, proportionate and dissuasive punishments throughout the European Union.

Legislative frameworks in Bulgaria do not guarantee that racist and xenophobic motives are taken into account by national courts as an aggravating factor for the crime committed.

Bulgaria has failed to correctly transpose the criminalisation of specific forms of hate speech calling for violence and hatred. In particular, it is about publicly justifying, denying or grossly trivialising international crimes against humanity and the Holocaust.

All five countries have two months to answer the questions raised by the EC.

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