Greece will take part in the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest on May 12, according to the draw held on Monday night at Vienna's town hall. Cyprus appears in the second semi-final on May 14.
The first semi-final will feature the representatives of Montenegro, Estonia, Georgia, Portugal, San Marino, Croatia, Sweden, Poland, Belgium, Lithuania, Serbia, Finland, Moldova and Israel.
In the second semi-final, on 14 May, Albania, Denmark, Armenia, Romania, Cyprus, Switzerland, Norway, Azerbaijan, Luxembourg, Malta, Bulgaria, Australia, Ukraine, Czech Republic and Latvia were drawn.
The judges' scores will be combined with the results of the public vote to select the ten songs from each semi-final that will go through to the final, which will take place on 16 May.
Last year's winner Austria and the four "big" countries, France, Germany, Italy and Britain, the most important financiers of the competition, go directly to the final.
The fifth "big" country, Spain, is boycotting this year's Eurovision due to the participation of Israel, which has been accused by some countries of "manipulating the public voting system in the 2025 contest and stifling press freedom in the war in Gaza". For the same reasons, Ireland, Iceland, the Netherlands and Slovenia are absent this year.
The committees, which were abolished in 2022, return this year in the semi-finals, expanded and with the participation of young people aged 18-25.
