Bulgaria will return to the Eurovision Song Contest next year after it did not participate in the last two editions in 2014 and 2015.

The Bulgarian National Television (BNT) confirmed to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) that the country will have a representative at the 61^st edition of the Eurovision next year.

Eurovision 2016 is scheduled to take place in the Swedish capital of Stockholm between May 10 and 14 next year.

Bulgaria is one of the four countries to return to the contest along with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Ukraine.

A total of 43 countries will perform at the Ericsson Globe arena in front of a television audience of more than 200 million people.

This will be the tenth participation of Bulgaria in the contest after the country's debut in 2005.

At its last participation in 2013, Bulgaria was represented by Elitsa Todorova and Stoyan Yankulov, but they failed to qualify for the final.

The duo also represented the country at the 2007 edition of the contest, when Bulgaria recorded its best performance so far, finishing fifth.

On all other occasion the country failed to qualify for the final.

BNT will soon announce the process on the selection of the Bulgarian representative and entry.

Sweden will host the song contest for the second time in the past five years after its representative Mans Zelmerlow won this year's edition.

Meanwhile, in an official letter EBU expressed the highest appraisal to BNT for the perfect organisation and hosting of the 2015 Junior Eurovision.

This year's edition of the Junior Eurovision was held at the Arena Armeec hall in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia on November 21, with the victory going to Malta's Destiny Chukunyere.

EBU paid special attention to the professionalism, motivation and readiness for teamwork demonstrated by the crew of BNT.

The union notes that not a single negative comment was received by the numerous representatives accredited by EBU, expressing readiness for future work on further joint projects with the public broadcasters of Europe.