EBU: 38-40 participants in Vienna

Today the EBU announced a preliminary list of participants for the Eurovision Song Contest 2015. It has been specified that 38 broadcasters confirmed their participation in Vienna whereas one TV station (presumably the Albanian one) still hasn’t made a final decision. Greece, on the other hand, might still struggle with the EBU rules. If both Albania and Greece confirm, we’ll have a total of 40 countries competing in Vienna (three more than this year in Copenhagen).

Why is the Greek participation in danger?
The issue with Greece is the broadcaster itself. This year the newly founded broadcaster NERIT got a special permission by the Eurovision Reference Group despite not being an active member of the EBU yet (which is normally a requirement to take part in ESC). Next year, this exception won’t be made. That means NERIT has to become a full member by the time of the semi allocation draw which takes place in January.

However, NERIT has previously expressed their interest in taking part in Eurovision 2015 – so it can be expected that a proper application was submitted and a full membership can be issued before January.

The current list of participants looks like this:

Semi finalists

Armenia
Azerbaijan
Belarus
Belgium
Bosnia & Herzegovina
Cyprus
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
Georgia
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland
Israel
Latvia
Lithuania
Macedonia
Malta
Moldova
Montenegro
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
San Marino
Serbia
Slovenia
Sweden
Switzerland

Finalists

Austria (Host nation)
France
Germany
Italy
Spain
United Kingdom

We hope that Albania and Greece will complete the final line-up!

Source: eurovision.tv • Picture courtesy: Andres Putting (EBU)