Today, March 22nd, marks the deadline for all participating broadcasters of the Eurovision Song Contest 2010 to submit their entries to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). However all countries have submitted their respective entries except one, Ukraine. The Ukrainian broadcaster, NTU, informed the EBU that they could not submit a song as of yet.
The Ukrainian public broadcaster assured the EBU its commitment to deliver a complete entry for the 2010 running no later than Monday, March 29th.As this is in breach of the rules of the competition, the Reference Group (the governing body of the Eurovision Song Contest) have decided to impose a regulatory fine, and an additional fine for each and every day after the deadline that no entry has been received by the EBU.
Svante Stockselius, Executive Supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest on behalf of the EBU said, "The Reference Group has the regulatory possibility to impose a fine or to disqualify a broadcaster when they are in breach of certain rules. In this case, the Eurovision Song Contest's governing body imposes a fine. This shows our commitment to the rules and has the least impact on the preparations of the Host Broadcaster."
At the moment all Heads of Delegations for each country are meeting in Oslo, Norway. Click here for more information.