When you hear Eurovision, you think of Europe, but in practice Israel and Australia have been participating in the Eurovision Song Contest for years. Tonight we see Australian band Voyager on stage. They are not from Europe. What’s up with that?
First: Australia and Israel are the only countries participating in the Eurovision Song Contest that are not in Europe or part of the European Union. For example, Morocco participated in 1980, Cyprus geographically belongs to Asia and Turkey participated 34 times, while the country is mostly in Southwest Asia.
Participation in the Eurovision Song Contest has very little to do with a country’s location. It’s actually quite simple: countries that are members of the European Broadcasting Union can participate in principle. Parties working with the EBU may also be invited to participate.
Ontvang meldingen bij nieuwe verhalen over het Eurovisie Songfestival
The EBU is essentially a partnership of public broadcasters. 55 countries are now official members and there is active cooperation with 20 countries. In the Netherlands, Nederlandse Publieke Omroep (NPO) is affiliated, but AVROTROS is in principle the broadcaster broadcasting the Eurovision Song Contest.
A total of 52 countries have participated in the Eurovision Song Contest once. Currently, there is a maximum of 44 participants per year, with forty countries participating this year. Australia is one of the countries that is not an official member of the EBU, but cooperates a lot with the organization. The country has broadcast the Eurovision Song Contest every year since 1983.
In 2015, Australia was asked to participate. This will happen once during the sixtieth edition, so the country does not have to participate in the semi-finals. This was also done so as not to deprive other countries who should have qualified through the semi-finals. The entry was successful and Australia was asked if they would like to return in 2016. This time not directly in the final, but first in the semi-finals.
If Australia won the Eurovision Song Contest, we wouldn’t all be going down that road. Officially, the festival takes place in the winning country, but it was already agreed at the first participation that this would not be the case. Germany or the United Kingdom were asked to host the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time, and it will be similar in the future. Australia’s participation has been decided until this year, after which it will have to be renegotiated.
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Israel has been a participating and full member of the European Broadcasting Union since 1973. The country has already won the event four times and hosted the festival in 1979, 1999 and 2019. In total, Israel has participated 43 times.
Good to know: There are a lot of countries that were allowed to participate, but didn’t. For example, Egypt and Tunisia are also allowed to participate as members of the EBU, as are Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya and the Vatican City. Luxembourg, Monaco and Hungary were once participating countries but have now refrained from doing so for some years. Not sure if they’ll ever come back, but they’re all still members of the EBU.
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