Maria Olafs ‘Unbroken’ – Photo : Youtube

ICELAND : Reports that their Eurovision Entry is in Jeopardy of being withdrawn

According to Icelandic news agency MBL.is – this year’s Icelandic Eurovision entry could be forced to withdraw from the Eurovision Song Contest. Why I hear you ask?

There is an on­go­ing ‘Lawyers Strike’ taking place in Iceland at present and it is having a wide variety of implications in Icelandic Society from Social, Economic and now Cultural aspects.

So who is involved?

Lawyers from the ‘Ice­landic As­so­ci­a­tion of Aca­d­e­mics’ (BHM) have taken strike action since last Tuesday April 7th. Continued talks with the Icelandic Government have collapsed over wage disputes. Furthermore there appears to be no movement from both sides and they remain in a stalemate.This in­dus­trial ac­tion is af­fect­ing le­gal and no­tar­ial ser­vices in many ar­eas.

How does this have an impact on Eurovision?

No­taries work­ing for the Reyk­javik Dis­trict Com­mis­sioner  each year over­see and con­firm the votes and re­sults of the Ice­landic pro­fes­sional jury at Eu­ro­vi­sion. These no­taries are cur­rently in­volved in the on­go­ing strike ac­tion and are refusing to carry out their tasks.

An an­nounce­ment is­sued by BHM this morn­ing de­tail­ing the var­i­ous ef­fects of the lawyers’ strike on Ice­landic Society warns that “pro­tracted strike ac­tion could jeop­ar­dise Ice­land’s Eu­ro­vi­sion par­tic­i­pa­tion”.

No comment as yet from the Icelandic Eurovision Delegation but we will keep you posted.

Maria Olafs is scheduled to perform the song ‘Unbroken’ at Eurovision in Vienna.

Author/Editor in Chief Garrett Mulhall

Source : MBL.is