We already have a confirmation from Portugal and Poland that they won't participate in Malmö 2013 Eurovision due financial problems and Slovenia and Slovakia are apparently doing the same unless something happens very quickly. A few days ago Cyprus announced the same news and today it's Greece. Both countries have earlier announced their intention to participate but while the last day to confirm draws closer they both lack money or sponsors to be able to participate. EBU wanted to scale down Eurovision but I don't think they ment this!
Portugal has been present since 1964 and has missed only three editions; 1970 for protest along with a handful of other countries, and in 2000 and 2002 for relegation based on previous year's results. Poland missed out last year because of financing the football European championships and was ment to return in 2013 but won't with rather vague excuses. Slovenia has been participating whenever possible (relegation in the 1990's) while Greece stepped out in several occasions in the 1980's but has been in since 1987 every year. The country has also reached the final every since the semifinals were introduced and even in top-10 every year, except last year when finally their recipe passed best before date and only reached 17th place.
Cyprus has been participating since 1981 with the exception of 1988 and 2001 with mixed results.
If all these countries stay home we have the lowest participating number of countries since the semifinals were introduced in Istanbul 2004...
It's worth mentioning also Andorra, Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Monaco and Morocco are missing. Liechtenstein and Kosovo won't debut either.
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