It has been announced by the Acting Director-General of RTK (Kosovo’s National Broadcaster) that they intend to apply for EBU membership sometime this year, with the goal to participate in the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest.
It is a joint plan of the current management of RTK that in the coming period, maybe at the end of this year or next year, to officially apply for membership in the EBU. Kosovo could benefit en masse from such a thing. RTK is an observer member of the EBU and in this capacity can not participate in Eurovision Song Contest. It was a political problem, because membership in the UN and ITU has not been possible so far, however, after the moves regarding the international code of Kosovo and after the exclusion of Belarus and Russia, the possibilities should be considered to find another kind of interpretation for Kosovo to join the EBU. These are projects that need to be worked on a lot, and see if we can do it later. Now the chances may be higher due to recent moves to exclude Russia and Belarus.Once Kosovo joins the EBU, it will be part of Eurovision.
Shkumbin Ahmetxhekaj, Acting Director-General of RTK
The biggest hurdle to Kosovan membership, previously, had been the fact that Kosovo must be also a member of the International Telecommunication Union, which Kosovo have not been granted membership of, mainly due to Russian veto. RTK expect that they should be able to overcome this due to Russia’s current standing in the world. Serbia could also be a problem as they participate in Eurovision, even coming 5th in 2022, and they aren’t too fond of participating side-by-side with a country they don’t recognise as a sovereign state.
There is a time limit for Eurovision 2023, as Kosovo would have to achieve full EBU membership status before October 2022, which isn’t too far away. However, no matter what happens, it seems that we could be seeing a Kosovan participation within the next couple of contests.
