San Marino will not participate in the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest. The small republic has informed the EBU that despite wanting to participate, it will not be able to meet all of the necessary criteria for entering the competition in Moscow.

San Marino's withdrawal from the competition after just one year of particiaption comes as the EBU maintains discussions to keep Latvia in the competition. Reports in the last two days have confirmed that the Baltic state is looking to withdraw from the Eurovision Song Contest in order to save money as it battles a credit crisis.

Initally, the national broadcaster of San Marino, SMRTV,had applied to enter the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest, rubbishing rumours that it would withdraw after a poor result in their debut year. However, due to increasing financial hardships, SMRTV have informed the EBU that they will not be moving to the final list of competing countries.

Lithunaian national broadcaster LVT has also claimed that the Eurovision Song Contest participation could be cut as a cost saving measure. Whilst the participation fee in recent years has remained relatively constant, the additional costs such as travel and accoomodation fees have expanded greatly.

The list of participants has traditionally been made public in early December. The delay in revealing the final list of countries taking part in the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest suggests that there are still countries that have yet to confirm that they will procede with their participation.

Stay tuned to esctoday.com for all the latest news regarding the possible withdrawals of Latvia and Lithuania.