Since 2008, when Eurovision has started to include 2 semi-finals,
EBU builds Pots of countries for the purpose to reduce political and neighborly voting between countries.
The 35 countries that participate in the semi-finals have been allocated into 5 pots, based on historical voting patterns as calculated by the contest’s official televoting partner Digame.
Each pot will include 7 countries. From each pot, 3-4 countries will be polled in the first semi-final and the remaining 3-4 countries will be polled in the second semi-final.
Moreover, every country will get scheduling for the first/second half of the show it will perform at.
Each country among the 6 automatic qualifiers: France, Spain, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom and the host country The Netherlands, will be polled in one of the semi-finals where they will broadcast and be able to vote in.
The pots of the countries for Eurovision 2020 are:
Pot 1
The pot includes 5 Ex-Yoguslavian countries (North Macedonia, Albania, Serbia, Slovenia, and Croatia) together with 2 countries with large diaspora from Ex-Yoguslavian countries (Switzerland and Austria).
Pot 2
The pot includes the Nordic-Scandinavian countries from Northern Europe: Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Iceland alongside Australia.
Pot 3
The pot includes former Soviet-Union countries: Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus,
Caucasian countries: Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan
and Moldova which is surprisingly apart from Romania.
Pot4
The pot includes the countries: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Malta, Portugal, Romania, and San Marino
Pot5
The put includes Belgium, Czech Republic, Israel, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland.
Pot of Automatic Qualifiers
The pot includes the Big 5 (Germany, Italy, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom) together with Eurovision 2020 host country The Netherlands.
3 of them will vote and broadcast in semi-final 1 and the other 3 countries 3 will vote and broadcast in semi-final 2.
The host city insignia ceremony and the semi-finals allocation draw will be broadcast live from Rotterdam city hall on 28 January 2020 at 16:11 CET on the contest’s official YouTube channel here:
