No television will broadcast the Eurovision Song Contest in Romania this year, and the offer made by private television Pro TV in this sense can’t be accepted because they are not members of the European Broadcasting Company (EBU), the organization announced on Facebook.

The statement was made after Pro TV announced that it wants to broadcast the show, and has sent an open letter to the contest’s organizers to convince them that Romania and its representative Ovidiu Anton should participate this year.

"Although ProTV approached us with an offer to broadcast this year’s Eurovision Song Contest because they are not Members of the European Broadcasting Union, and the Eurovision Song Contest is a competition between Members and Associates, we cannot take them up on their offer,” EBU said in a Facebook post.

It then commented on the post: “Romania will not be participating in the ESC (Eurovision Song Contest e.n.) this year, and no broadcaster will transmit the show in Romania.”

Romania was recently kicked out from the Eurovision Song Contest because the public television TVR has accumulated debts of some EUR 14.5 million to the EBU. The organization decided to exclude Romania from the contest after the deadline for repaying the debt expired on April 21.

Neighboring Moldova also reacted to the bad news and invited Romania’s representative Ovidiu Anton to compete in Eurovision together with Republic of Moldova’s representative, Lidia Isac.

Eurovision will take place on May 10, 12 and 14 this year. Romania was supposed to compete in the second semifinal, scheduled for May 12.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com