From cold war to diaspora voices: which countries support each other at the Eurovision Song Contest?

The Netherlands

The Netherlands has its most loyal fans in neighboring Belgium. But traditionally, the Dutch entry also receives an above-average number of points from Hungary, Austria and Israel. Turkey also produced a higher than average score for the Netherlands. This is of no use to Joost Klein for the upcoming festival, because Turkey has not participated since 2012. In 2013, the country temporarily withdrew and after Conchita Wurst’s victory in 2014, it decided to permanently withdraw from the competition.

The very first Eurovision song ever was Dutch. In 1956, Jetty Paerl was allowed to take the lead with the work written by Annie MG Schmidt The birds of Holland. Host country Switzerland won that year. Later, the Netherlands managed to achieve success, partly thanks to its southern neighbors.

Conversely, the Netherlands usually also awards Belgium an above-average number of points. Furthermore, since the introduction of so-called ‘televoting’, many Dutch votes have gone to Turkey. It is now no longer possible to vote on this. Armenian entries also generally do well with Dutch voters.

Eastern European countries can count on few Dutch votes, and that is mutual. Russia averaged the most points per final (3.9 per judging country) but did not win a single victory. Russia would not want it from the Netherlands anyway. Compared to the average score, the fewest Dutch points went to Russia, Ukraine and Geörgie.

Douze points

Turkey and Azerbaijan have played in the same final only five times, and all of those times Turkey gave the neighboring country douze points (the maximum 12 points). Now Azerbaijan scored well in those years anyway. It is more striking that Andorra gives 12 points to Spain. Except in 2007 – and then not a single point could be lost for the neighboring country. Conversely, Spain is not economical with the points for Andorra. Fortunately, because few other countries award points to the tiny state, which has only reached the final a few times.

Just looking at who awards the most points to which country is not enough. Then Sweden often comes out on top, as that country, together with Ireland, has the most Eurovision victories to its name. The question is who awards points to artists who are not popular with the rest of the countries. And which countries give little points to the artists who score very high?

For a long time it was ‘common knowledge’ that Eastern Europe and Western Europe often depend on their own points of view. Scandinavia also forms a bloc, judging by voting behavior. Close pairs of friends in Eurovision history are Cyprus and Greece and Romania and Moldova. These countries almost always give each other a lot of points, even if the rest of the juries and televoters are not very enthusiastic about that year’s entry.

The fact that neighboring countries often award each other an excessive number of points does not necessarily indicate geopolitical considerations on the part of the televoter. Songs from nearby countries are often in languages ​​that the listener speaks, and artists are sometimes already known across borders. That could be good news for the Netherlands: Joost Klein scored with Friesenjung already a number 1 hit in Germany and Austria.