On July 8th, the European Broadcasting Union rejected the application from Catalonia’s broadcaster, CCMA, to join the EBU. EBU spokesperson Claire Rainford explained in a statement:
“The EBU does not, and has never had, any regional station in a region or community belonging to a member state of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) or the Council of Europe as an independent member. The statutes of the EBU do not offer this possibility.“
– Claire Rainford
Catalonia’s broadcaster had hopes that their application for EBU membership would be accepted, considering Catalan radio station, Catalunya Música, is a member of the EBU’s Euroradio music exchange program. On this point, Rainford had this to say:
“We continue to value our existing cooperation with Catalunya Music as part of the Euroradio exchange music and wish them continued success.”
–Claire Rainford
There was also hope for membership due to the participation of Scotland in Eurovision Choir of the Year and Wales in Junior Eurovision. However, it was determined that the situation is not the same, since Wales and Scotland are considered constituent countries of the UK, not dependent regions.
The EBU also says that similarly to international sporting events, the UK has the right to compete either as a whole or as separate nations, so long as if they compete separately, a broadcaster that services all four nations (i.e. BBC or ITV) does not compete on behalf of one constituent country.
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