HOW many countries?!

This week, it was announced that Georgia (where?), a country just sitting south of Russia (oh…), intends to participate at the Eurovision Song Contest 2007. Yes, it seems that Eurovision is so popular that everyone wants to join! Indeed, that’s why the Semi-Final and the 40 countries limit was introduced.

However, the way things are going the maximum 40 countries limit is going to be exceeded leaving quite a big problem for Mr Svante Stockselius, the Eurovision scrutineer – if you like he’s the Prime Minister of Eurovision (see the picture, he doesn't always look this happy), and a lot of the fans are questioning just how Eurovision can accommodate so many countries. Because at the moment there are up to FORTY-FOUR countries interested in entering the Eurovision (think of the length of the voting)! And they are…

- The 37 countries that participated last year…
(Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, FYR Macedonia, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom)

- 4 possible returning countries…
(Austria, Hungary, Montenegro, Serbia)

- And 3 possible debut countries…
(Azerbaijan, Czech Republic, Georgia)

So what are the options? Well it seems that one option is to stop the influx of new countries, although this seems a little unfair on those that want to join. So therefore, it seems that the relegation rule, that was prominent in 90s Eurovision, will come back into play where the each country will be assessed on its performance over the last five years, and the worst performing will be relegated. But of course the idea of the Semi Final was to get rid of the relegation process...

So a limit of 40+ countries, or the return of the relegation rule? All will be revealed very soon...