Romania: EBU expels Romania from 2016 Eurovision Song Contest

SOT, Dan Suciu, Romanian government spokesperson (Romanian): "I don't know, sorry. We discussed the situation, indeed, there is no legal ground on which to make this financial transfer, keeping in mind that the Romanian national broadcaster is in multiple debts. It would be a question of disloyal competition and this would have lead to complaints to all the European free market watchdogs. So, unfortunately, we haven't found a technical solution and legal, above all, not to mention the financial solution. First of all, we haven't found a legal technical solution that would allow a supposed payment to be made. We are sorry to realise this. But the notice arrived to us only recently. This problem goes back many years, it should have been fixed years ago, these are debts dating back many years, and it is somehow inequitable to point the finger at this government for not having settled a debt that has been left unpaid for years in a drawer somewhere. We haven't found the technical solution and the legal solution to make this payment within the narrow timeframe of just 24 hours that we were given."
SOT, Reporter (Romanian): "From what we know, the EBU had just requested a letter of guarantee from the government."
SOT, Dan Suciu, Romanian government spokesperson (Romanian): "A guarantee means a payment. If you wish to play with words and to throw around guarantees in the absence of a technical and legal confirmation of a payment, certainly, you are free to do so. We cannot play around with a guarantee, unless we know the legal and technical solution for this payment. We don't have them, at this moment, and we doubt that it's even possible, since we haven't been able to come up with it."
SOT, Reporter (Romanian): "There will also be other events which the public broadcaster won't be able to air, like the European Championship and other events. Will there be more discussions?"
SOT, Dan Suciu, Romanian government spokesperson (Romanian): "We have not been mandated to work at this time in the reform of the public broadcaster. This is something that must be decided by another institution, we have offered all of our cooperation in order to intervene in this process, within the legal boundaries that we have. Thank you."
Romanian government spokesperson Dan Suciu commented on the country's expulsion from the Eurovision Song Contest during a press conference in Bucharest, Friday.
When asked to comment on the situation, Suciu replied: "I don't know, sorry. We discussed the situation, indeed, there is no legal ground on which to make this financial transfer, keeping in mind that the Romanian national broadcaster is in multiple debts. It would be a question of disloyal competition and this would have lead to complaints to all the European free market watchdogs."
"This problem goes back many years, it should have been fixed years ago, these are debts dating back many years, and it is somehow inequitable to point the finger at this government for not having settled a debt that has been left unpaid for years in a drawer somewhere. We haven't found the technical solution and the legal solution to make this payment within the narrow timeframe of just 24 hours that we were given," he added.
Romania was expelled from the Eurovision Song Contest after the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) claimed that the country's public service broadcaster Televiziunea Romana (TVR) owes 16 million Swiss francs (�\x82\xAC14,568,100 / $16,465,000) in outstanding debts dating back to 2007. The decision to expel Romania from the European singing contest was made by the EBU after the Romanian government failed to make arrangements to repay the debt by April 20. The move will also affect access to other EBU services including Eurovision News and Sports News and may affect the broadcasting of sporting events such as the UEFA Euro 2016 football championship and the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.