The organizers of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, SVT, and the official website of the Competition have just revealed which country is in which of the pots for the allocation draw!
The 37 semi finalists have been divided into 6 pots, based on their voting history. This helps reducing the so called “neighbour voting” and “bloc voting”. This is how the semi finalists have been allocated per pots:
Pot 1
- Albania
- F.Y.R. Macedonia
- Montenegro
- Slovenia
- Croatia
- Serbia
- Bosnia & Herzegovina
Pot 2
- Denmark
- Finland
- Norway
- Iceland
- Estonia
- Latvia
Pot 3
- Armenia
- Azerbaijan
- Belarus
- Georgia
- Russia
- Ukraine
Pot 4
- Belgium
- Cyprus
- Greece
- Australia
- The Netherlands
- Bulgaria
Pot 5
- Czech Republic
- Lithuania
- Ireland
- Malta
- Poland
- San Marino
Pot 6
- Austria
- Hungary
- Israel (pre-assigned to the second Semi-Final)
- Moldova
- Romania
- Switzerland
The draw will take place on Monday at 11:15 CET live from Stockholm. It has been decided that the first semi final will have 18 participants, while the second semi final will have 19. The allocation draw will be hosted by Alexandra Pascalidou and Jovan Radomir.
I think each pot should be allocated to five zones in Europe and each zone should NOT be allowed to vote within their own zone. That way no country can vote for their next door neighbor.