Svante Stockselius, European Broadcasting Union's Supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest, told our colleagues at gylleneskor.se that the final Junior Eurovision Song Contest's participants list will be revealed in mid September and that currently no big changes are planned for the adult version of the contest.

Stockselius says the final list of participants for the Junior Eurovision Song Contest is still undecided and it's unsure whether Poland will participate or not. “At this moment we are having discussions with several countries, amongst them Poland,” he says. The final list will be published between 12-13th September at the meeting of the steering group in Hasselt. The problem, as he points out, is the popularity of the format among the member broadcasters of the EBU. This has made them look for possibilites to increase the possible number of participants. No changes in the rules are planned, though.

He also touched on the subject of possible changes in the Eurovision Song Contest, saying that there have been some objections about the format but the number of objections has decreased. He concludes that “from EBU�s point of view we are satisfied. /../ Of course one always has to discuss developments of the format in order to make it even better.”. Possible changes in the format of the contest is also one of the topics at the meeting of the Eurovision Song Contest Reference Group in Athens this weekend.