Belarus’ Eurovision broadcaster BTRC has been expelled from the European Broadcasting Union. This rules out a Belarusian participation in Italy 2022 and makes Belarus’ return to the Eurovision Song contest and the Junior Eurovision Song contest extremely unlikely.
Let’s take a look at what Belarus has brought to the Eurovision Song Contest since 2004.
The Belarusian national final for the Eurovision Song contest 2018 took place on 16 February 2018. Ten songs participated in the competition and the winner was selected through a jury and public televote.
After the finalists were revealed, it emerged that a Russian language version of Alekseev’s entry Forever had been performed at several concerts before 1 September. Eurovision rules state that no entry may have been made publicly available prior to 1 September of the previous year, as it may give songs an unfair advantage. Despite this no action was taken. In the national final a 50/50 combination of votes from jury members made up of music professionals and a public telephone vote selected the song Forever performed by Alekseev and written by Kyrylo Pavlov and Evhen Matyushenko as the winner.
At the ESC Belarus finished in 16th place in the semi-final.