English language at Eurovision

Since 1999, Eurovision rules have allowed participating countries to sing in the language of their choice. This freedom has led to the widespread use of English, which has become the dominant language of the contest. Perceived as a vector of universality and success, English is often chosen by artists to maximize their reach to international audiences. On the other hand, other participants choose to distinguish themselves by favoring national or even regional languages.

In 2016, 80% of songs were in English, a record!

As early as 1999, the year in which each country could choose its own language, no fewer than 12 of the 23 participating countries - over half - had songs in English.
As the number of participants increased, necessitating the introduction of semi-finals in 2004, English confirmed its status as the competition's dominant language. The 2016 edition of the competition even saw 34 songs performed in English out of the 42 titles in competition, more than 80% of the total.
However, a downward trend has been observed since 2017. That year, in fact, it was a song in Portuguese that won the competition. Has this convinced some countries to drop English? In any case, when the contest was last held in Basel in 2025, there were only 14 songs with English as the main language, less than 38% of all songs.

High use of English throughout Europe, except in the South

• Anglo-Saxon countries (Australia, Ireland, Malta and the UK): unsurprisingly, these countries systematically use English. However, in 2024, the Australian song included words in Yankunytjatjara, an aboriginal language.

• Scandinavia (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden): Scandinavian countries use English almost systematically (80% of the time on average). In 2025, however, Sweden has proposed a title in Swedish, Finland in Finnish and Iceland in Icelandic.

• Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania): here again, English dominates, although Estonia has participated several times in Estonian and even in Italian.

• Central Europe (Austria, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the Netherlands): the use of English is very frequent, also hovering around 80% of the time. Switzerland has recently offered two titles in French (2021 and 2025), as have the Netherlands (2022 and 2024 in Dutch, 2025 in French). Luxembourg, absent from the competition since 1993 and returning in 2024, has so far offered two songs in French.

• Eastern Europe and Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Poland, Czech Republic and Ukraine): the behavior is more varied. Only Azerbaijan stands out for its systematic use of English.

• Southern Europe (France, Italy, San Marino, Spain and Portugal): these countries make a point of singing in their national language. Occasionally, however, they include a few words of English to reach a wider audience.

• Balkans (Albania, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Montenegro, Slovenia, Serbia) and Israel: strategies differ for these countries. While Cyprus and Greece regularly opt for English, Serbia seems to prefer the official language. Israel, for its part, often offers bilingual songs in English and Hebrew.

Historical background

At the outset of the competition, the first participating countries all competed with a song sung in their national language, but at the time there was no provision in the rules for the right to sing in a language other than their own.

In 1965, Sweden offered a song in English. This first in the competition led to a ban the following year on the use of any language other than the country's national language.

This rule was initially abolished in 1973, allowing Finland, Norway and Sweden to submit songs in English. Nevertheless, Tu te reconnaîtras, a song sung in French by Anne-Marie David, won the competition for Luxembourg. The following year, however, the Swedish group ABBA won with Waterloo, a song sung in English.

In 1977, the rule was reintroduced, and for almost 20 years, participating countries were required to offer songs sung in one of their national languages.

Finally, since 1999, there has been no rule restricting participants as to the language(s) used in the songs. In 2003, Belgium even proposed a song in an imaginary language: Sanomi from Urban Trad. A strategy repeated in 2006 by the Netherlands (Amambanda) and again in 2008 by Belgium (O Julissi).