Denmark, Norway and Sweden asked the European Broadcasting Union a limitation of 12 countries to participate at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. But the other countries protested against this proposal. Our colleagues of Belgovision.com wrote this.
Last Tuesday, the Nordic countries revealed that they will withdraw from this year's Junior Eurovision Song Contest, to be held in the Romanian capital Bucharest on 2nd December. They are unhappy with the commercial pressure the contest puts on the young contestants.
The chairman of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest reference group, Steve De Coninck, is unhappy with this decision, he said in the newspaper De Standaard. He doesn't accept that the withdrawal is linked with the commercial pressure, as the Danish, Norwegian en Swedish broadcasters declare.
“We never discussed this topic in the reference group”, De Coninck says. According to him the Nordic countries asked a bigger representation in the reference group. “They wanted to have a bigger power on the Junior Eurovision Song Contest and to have a 12-country limitation. In that way, they tried to stop the Eastern European invasion. That proposal was unacceptable, because they run counter to EBU's philosophy”, De Coninck says. Belarus was last year's winner, and Romania organise the next edition of the contest. “The new dispersal reflects the new Europe, and we have no problem with it”.
