North Macedonia: The country will NOT participate in Eurovision 2023!

It seems that yet another Balkan country, North Macedonia, will not take part in Eurovision 2023, that is set to take place in Liverpool, in May 2023.

According to a tweet by North Macedonia’s most popular Eurovision fan site, which was retweeted by ESC Discord, North Macedonia withdraws from the Contest due to financial reasons. This revelation comes as no surprise, given that as it transpired some weeks ago no budget whatsoever was allocated for the Contest by MRT.

🇲🇰 As we let you know a few weeks ago, based on the allocated budget by MRT and their planned programming for 2023, North Macedonia withdraws from Eurovision 2023. https://t.co/PCWGzNL6VO

— ESC Discord (@ESCdiscord) October 14, 2022

However, MRT will broadcast the two nights of the semi-finals and the grand final of this year’s Eurovision on it’s platforms. MRT hopes that the economic situation will improve and the country will return to Eurovision 2024!

As we exclusively revealed yesterday, both Bulgaria and Montenegro will ALSO not take part in the 67th ESC. As of this time, only the following 34 countries have publicly confirmed their intentions to participate in the 2023 ESC:

Semi-finals (28 countries)

Albania
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Belgium
Croatia
Cyprus
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
Georgia
Greece
Iceland
Ireland
Israel
Latvia
Lithuania
Malta
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Romania
San Marino
Serbia
Slovenia
Sweden
Switzerland

Final (Big Five & Ukraine)

France
Germany
Italy
Spain
Ukraine
United Kingdom

Countries that took part in ESC 2022 but have not expressed any intention about ESC 2023

Armenia
Czech Republic
Moldova

If the above three countries do not enter the Contest, ESC 2023 is set to become the ESC edition with the fewer participants since 2003. Semi-final(s) format was introduced in 2004 with just one semi-final, and was replaced with the two semi-finals’ setting in 2008 and onwards.

Source: MRT

Stay tuned on Eurovisionfun for all the details about the upcoming ESC!