We are still a few months off this year’s Junior Eurovision Song Contest, however over the last few weeks the news has been steadily flowing. We have seen Georgia select their artist, France announce their return and Wales their debut, as well as Bulgaria’s announcement that they will not be returning.
Now we have a few more pieces of the puzzle. We’ll start with the bad news, and then end on a good note! There’s always a bit of hope that we’ll see nations debut at Junior Eurovision, and as much as we are happy that Wales will make their first independent appearance, we are disappointed to see that Finland will not make their debut at the contest this year. The Finnish broadcaster YLE has now confirmed this news.
A nation we have seen at Junior Eurovision before but won’t be seeing again in 2018 is Slovenia. The Slovenian broadcaster RTVSLO has now confirmed that they also won’t be returning to the contest, making it the third year in a row now that they haven’t participated. The last time the country participated was in 2015, and their reasoning behind withdrawing in 2016 was the rule changes to the contest.
It’s not all bad news though, as Serbian broadcaster RTS has now confirmed that they will be at the upcoming Junior Eurovision Song Contest in Minsk, Belarus! There’s no news yet of how they will select their act, but whoever they decide on will be the lucky number 10! This is an anniversary appearance from Serbia, who have now participated in 10 years of Junior Eurovision. The nation made their debut back in 2006, and have participated in all years since then apart from 2011, 2012 and 2013.
So who is confirmed so far? Here’s the preliminary list (as of the publication date of this post)
- Armenia
- Belarus
- France
- Georgia
- Ireland
- Netherlands
- Poland
- Portugal
- Russia
- Serbia
- Wales
We are still waiting for confirmation from previous participating nations such as Albania, Australia, Cyprus, Italy, FYR Macedonia, Malta and Ukraine.