Pre-qualifying Round
In the run-up to this contest, the European Broadcasting Union finally started to grapple with the explosion in the number of potential participating countries, caused by the dissolution of the Eastern bloc, and also by the disintegration of Yugoslavia, which had traditionally been the only communist country that took part in the contest. For the first time, then, a pre-qualifying round was introduced, but only for countries that had either never participated in the contest at all, or in the case of former republics of Yugoslavia, had not previously competed as nations in their own right. This was, however, merely a 'sticking-plaster' measure that was plainly not a sustainable solution for future years, as it would not be seen as remotely equitable. But in the meantime, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania and Estonia were left to battle it out in a special competition called Kvalifikacija za Millstreet in Ljubljana on 3 April for the mere three places available at the grand final in Millstreet. After some extremely tight voting, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia edged through.
Read more about this topic: Eurovision Song Contest 1993