"As BTRC [Belarusian state-run broadcaster] have failed to submit an eligible entry within the extended deadline, regrettably, Belarus will not be participating in the 65th Eurovision Song Contest in May," the organization said in a statement.
The chairman of Belarusian state media company Belteleradiocompany (BTRC), a member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and an organizer of the national selection project for Eurovision, Ivan Eismont, told Sputnik that he considered the EBU decision to be politically motivated.
"The decision to disqualify us is politically motivated, which is what the European Union does not like so much — we know that it does though," Eismont suggested.
He said that the EBU had officially informed Belteleradiocompany about its decision, but the letter does not make the essence of the claims to the new song of the Belarusian participant clear.
"They sent us a letter, from which nothing is clear, except that some points were violated. It is not known which words of the song contained violations. The EBU cannot explain the essence of the claims," Eismont said.
He said that the EBU did not indicate "the words, lines, couplets that are related to politics."
Earlier, organizers of the Eurovision contest offered Belarus the opportunity to replace the song "I will teach you" by the group Galasy ZMesta, seeing a political subtext in it. The song has been removed from the contest's YouTube channel.
