In a recent interview, Vince Tempera, orchestra conductor at the 1975 Eurovision Song Contest (for Malta) and member a of the Sanmarinese committee that will select their first representative for the European contest next Tuesday, called Italy to come back to the competition.

Vince Tempera, a 62 year old musician, composer, talent scout and orchestra director, was a guest in yesterday’s morning news TG2show onthe Italian Broadcaster RAI networkto comment on the participations of San Marino and Switzerland in the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest.Although Italy has not participated since 1997, when Jalisse were the last representatives for the country, this year there is high interest as the Italian language won’t be absent and San Marino will make it's debut.

In the introduction video there was a reference to the similarities of the Swiss song Era stupendo, selected internally by the Swiss Broadcaster and performed by Paolo Meneguzzi and It can only get better of Amy Diamond, Melodifestivalen 2008 wildcard; Tempera admitted that there are similarities in some notes of the songs; he commented that nowadays many pop songs are very similar and it was not plagarism.

Maestro Tempera retained that a participation in the Eurovision Song Contest is very important, he referred to Toto Cutugno and his victory in 1990 and how that victory made him known to the European public. This week, the former winner took fourth place in the San Remo festival, ahead of Swiss Eurovision hopeful Paulo Meneguzzi.

This year Tempera will be part of the Sanmarinese committeeto select the first participant for the microstate and he called on Italy to come back to the Eurovision Song Contest, as Europe is an important market andthere will be some financial benefits for the country by exporting the Italian music.