Bosnia and Herzegovina: Sanctions by the EBU still in force!
The sanctions posed by the EBU on the Bosnian broadcaster BHRT, due to unpaid dabts, remain in force, excluding the country from the upcoming contest.
The first penalties on the public broadcaster of Bosnia and Herzegovina were imposed in December of 2016, when the EBU discontinued BHRT’s access to the Eurovision News Exchange and since then, the country is unable to participate on the Eurovision Song Contest. It is noted that the last Bosnian entry on the Contest was the song “Ljubav Je”, sung by Dalal and Deen featuring Ana Rucner and Jala who ended up 11th on their respective Semi-Final.
BHRT is facing financial difficulties and is even close to shutting down completely, taking the funding issues that has been dealing with since 2017 into account · this is because the Radio Television of Republica Srpska has not funded BHRT with the needed financial sources. There may have been negotiations around the matter for the past year, but a solution has not come up.
This is not the first time that the EBU forces sanctions on a participating broadcaster due to unfulfilled financial responsibilities. In 2016, the Romania’s TVR faced a penalty for the same reason as BHRT.
The country’s last participation was in Eurovision 2016 in Stockholm. The country was represented by Dalal, Deen, Ana Rucner and Jala with the song “Ljubav je”, but the country failed to qualify for the grand final for the first time as it finished 11th in the first semi-final.
Stay tuned on EurovisionFun for all the upcoming updates!
Source: BHRT
