Belgium: VRT confirms participation for Eurovision 2023

Belgium: VRT confirms participation for Eurovision 2023
Monday, 04 July 2022

  • The Belgic national broadcaster, VRT, has confirmed that they will be participating in the next edition of the Eurovision Song Contest in 2023. 

    VRT has confirm to ESCToday that Belgium will take part in the 67th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest in 2023. VRT and RTBF switch turns in selecting the country's Eurovision representatives. 

    In 2020 Hooverphonic were internally selected by VRT to perform "Release Me" in Rotterdam. Following the cancellation of the contest by EBU due to the coronavirus pandemic, a consultation between the VRT, the French-speaking public broadcaster RTBF and Hooverphonic led to VRT announcing that the band will represent Belgium at the Eurovision Song Contest 2021. RTBF considered it a logical decision to offer Hooverphonic and the VRT this opportunity and postponed their turn for participation for 2022.

    However, VRT, hasn't specified yet which format they will be using in order to select Belgium Eurovision 2023 representative. Over the following weeks VRT will shed more light on the countries preparation for the next competition. 

     

    Belgium in Eurovision 

    Belgium is one of the countries to have participated in the Eurovision SOng Contest since its first edition back in 1956. After 30 years the country achieves to win the contest in 1986 with the 13 yo Sandra Kim and her entry “J’aime la vie“.

    The country has finished last in the contest 8 times while in two of these occasions didn’t receive any point at all. In 2003 with the group Urban Trad and their song “Sanomi” it almost reached its second victory finishing in the 2nd place, only two points behind Turkey and Sertab Erener with her entry “Every way that I can“.

    Although the country has managed to qualify to the final 5 times the last decade, with Loïc Nottet in 2015 and Blanche in 2017 achieving the best results coming 4th in the final, the last two years it hasn’t been that story.  In 2018 with  Sennek and “A matter of time” , failed to reach the final although the juries ranked her 9th in her semi final. In 2019 internally selected  Eliot represented the country in Tel Aviv with his song “Wake up” which failed to reach the grand final.

    In 2020 Hooverphonic were internally selected to perform "Release Me" in Rotterdam. Following the cancellation of the contest by EBU due to the coronavirus pandemic, Hooverphonic represented the country in 2021 in Rotterdam with their song 'The Wrong Place" and after qualifying from the 1st semi final show they finished 19th in the final with an overall total of 74 points. 

    This year, The Voice Belgium winner, Jeremie Makiese flew the flag in Turin, Italy singing 'Miss you' which came 19th in the final with a total of 64 points. 

     

    News Source: ESCToday

    Image: EBU/Corinne Cumming

     

     

     

AUTHORS

  • Angelos D.

    Angelos D.

    Loyal follower of the Eurovision Song Contest since 1987, I've made the competition one of the stories of my life. After attending as accredited press the event for 13 consecutive years along with the 2017-2024 JESC editions, I also enjoy the last three years sharing more Eurovision music through the Eurofans radio's project.