The Eurovision Song Contest has bolstered its reputation as an uncannily accurate mirror of European politics after Serbia and Montenegro pulled out after a dispute over the national entry.

The troubled Balkan country, which is expected to split into two after a Montenegrin independence referendum in May, withdrew after the two halves failed to agree which side should represent it.

Little love is lost between Serbia and Montenegro, which remained joined in a loose union after the rest of Yugoslavia split into independent countries in the 1990s. Having separate parliaments, separate governments and even separate currencies, it proved beyond them to find a joint entry for the song contest, which was set up after the Second World War to bring Europe closer together.

A Montenegrin panel of judges was accused by Serbs of tactial voting this month after Montenegro’s No Name was chosen to represent the country. Serbia called for the vote to be restaged, but Montenegro refused, resulting in a stalemate.

“It would be better for all of us not to have a representative at the contest in Athens,” Alexander Tijanic, the head of RTS, the Serbian broadcaster, said in a statement. “Otherwise, we would have to accept manipulations, pressures and blackmails imposed by the music clans and political mentors who brought us to this embarrassing situation.”

The European Broadcasting Union, which organises the show, was officially informed of the decision at a meeting in Athens, where the final will be held on May 20, the day before the Montenegrin referendum. Serbia and Montenegro faces a fine of up to SwFr35,000 (£15,000) and a three-year ban from the contest.

Their place has been taken by Croatia, another former Yugoslav republic.

The Eurovision Song Contest, in which members of the public vote for their favourite national entry but are banned from voting for their own country, is often accused of politicised voting. Scandinavian countries often vote for each other in a spirit of solidarity, Greece and Cyprus regularly support each other, and after the invasion of Iraq Britain failed to get many votes. Ukraine won in 2004 after a wave of sympathy for its anti-Russian revolution, while last year the contest helped to propel the Netherlands to vote “nee” against the European constitution because many Dutch were outraged at Eastern Europeans voting for each other’s singers.

The Serbian row started after RTVCG, representatives of the Montenegro broadcaster, did not give a single point to any Serbian act at the national final in Belgrade on March 11.

The audience booed and threw bottles at the stage when No Name was declared the winner, and the group was forced to leave the stage without reprising their song. Serbia is opposed to Montenegrin independence because it will lose access to the Adriatic coast and become landlocked.

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