The 70th Eurovision Song Contest reaches its highlight with the Grand Final on May 16th, 2026. Read the review and impressions about the show here.

Dara wins the jubilee-show of the Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna with her song „Bangaranga“. She received the the highest score from the national seven-headed juries of all 35 participating countries as well as from the televotes. There is a lot to discuss, review and look forward to but what certainly remains in our heads is that „Bangaranga“ became the „Hakuna Matata“ of the mid 2020ies.

1. Australia 2. Italy 3. France 4. Greece 5. Romania 6. Sweden 7. Finland 8. Moldova 9. Norway 10. United Kingdom 11. Bulgaria 12. Austria 13. Lithuania

14. Malta 15. Ukraine 16. Belgien 17. Israel 18. Germany 19. Cyprus 20. Serbia 21. Poland 22. Denmark 23. Albania 24. Czechia 25. Croatia

Eurovision Song Contest 2026: Results & Votes

As I had already left my brief impressions about each here, where I reviewed the first semi-final, and here, about the second semi-final I am not going to explain my ranking any further. You can see it in the table above underneath the actual final ranking as a comparison. While watching the grand final I basically take notes after each act whom I liked better than before on the whole regarding song, performance, staging. This is how my ranking gets created. After all this is a music show and along with all participants and enthusiasts you become a huge Eurovision-family literally united by music. This is why I could also not rank Israel necessarily bad. Because in fact the song was great. This is something we would need to recognize. The thing bothering about this whole story is probably less Israel itself but how all of that is dealt with.

Is the Eurovision Song Contest political?

Isn’t this the question we, fans as well as media, cannot get rid of? It appears every year again, before, during and even after the Eurovision Song Contest. The best examples are probably Jamala winning with her Song „1944“ for Ukraine or again winning in 2022, the year when the Ukraine-war started. Question: did anyone think about what is politically going on for Bulgaria winning yesterday? I would not be surprised if people raise that question among themselves. Similar social policy or psychological questions arise when it comes to accusations like LGBTQ+ people gaining popularity in Eurovision as well as positivity not being valued anymore or when Eastern European „girl-bangers“ sing about female emancipation. „Prof. Eurovision“ who was played by Victoria Swarowski perfectly rose that topic in this jubilee-show and made clear that still most of the successful participants don’t actually belong to the LGBTQ+ community. This raises another topic.

The Israel-Boycott

Did you notice that the more points Israel got the less got Sweden? Sweden(!), the country that is the unofficial homeland of Eurovision tying with Ireland about being the most successful country in Eurovision with both having won the contest seven times and both countries winning twice with the same artist (Loreen and Johnny Logan). The Swedish representative Felicia had criticized Israel for participating in the contest due to the aggressions tied to murder against Palestine and Iran causing an international oil-crisis. Even the EBU, the organizer of Eurovision had been involved, and talking about Ireland it is one of the five (the other four being Iceland, Spain, one of the „big five“, Slovenia and The Netherlands) countries that had retreated from their basically constant participation because of Israel and you can actually ask: why do five countries have to leave in favor of one? There are always two sides.

„Eurovision is like the Olympic games for musicians“
– Lenna, Vanilla Ninja

I admired Felicia for raising her voice on that and I do support the motivation for the boycott of the five countries but furthermore it is less about the clash of participants and enthusiasts and more about how the EBU as supposed „neutral“ judge deals with it. If you tolerate Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest, despite boycotts, criticism and technically unsuccessful suppressed catcalls from the audience you could as well still keep tolerating Russia in the contest too. „United by music“ becomes „polarization by music“. Of course, Noam does not carry Netanjahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, at his forehead but you still represent him, too as heads of states are involved in the contest too just like in any other big event: football cups, Olympic games, etc. Generally you would not be political if you kept out of political matters. This forms the matching transition to the next big topic to discuss finally.

Does the Eurovision-jury disturb the sense of Democracy?

The discussion appears every year again: should the national juries for the Eurovision Song Contest be excluded? Since 2019 the jury votes have finally been separated from the televotes. This on the one hand made the Grand Final more interesting and has also given us a little bit more transparency on the other hand. However we have not achieved the full transparency we would wish for: The ones regarding the semi-finals that only get published by the end of the whole contest. You can see them now here. These results need to be published sooner (immediately after the semi-finals) to present post-semi-final-depression.
Another thing that I personally criticize is the weight of the televotes: As we have already learned zero points in the televoting don’t mean that no one in the country necessarily called for you or sent out a voting-message. There needs to be reached a certain number of votes in your country in relation to the other voting-countries so your votes actually cause an impact. This means that basically your calls, messages or votes where you in facht do pay (even if just a little) for each one ends up in nowhere if your country does not collect enough votes for the candidate you liked. This is a real pity and shame because it makes you spent resources worthless. I wish for this system to be improved.
A third point is to ask yourself who is actually less political? The jury or the televotes. Who tells us that politicians or their declared agent don’t send out political televotes?

But still the fact remains that a back then three-headed jury, now consisting of seven people, strongly differs from the majority of people regarding the voting results. Before actually excluding the jury for the sake of democracy it should be explained how the jury-members are qualified and who sits in the juries. After all one sentence you often heard this year is that the Eurovision Song Contest did a lot for democracy.

Voller Erfolg für Sarah Engels, Vanilla Ninja & co.

Sarah Engels asked for it and in case my fellow German media won’t do it, I am doing this: a complete success for Sarah Engels – no matter if she ended up last or first she asked for such a headline and why not giving it to her? Lenna Kuurmaa, the front-singer of Estonia’s Vanilla Ninja had often stated this: The Eurovision Song Contest is like the Olympic games for musicians and being on this stage even twice (speaking personally for her band) is something not everyone can claim for themselves. So despite their exclusion in the semi-final they appreciated it. Luckily there was a moment where we could see them again in two snippets during the Grand Final. And in fact as we learned Eurovision has had a huge impact on several careers. Sarah Engels herself always loved to watch Eurovision and had always dreamed of standing on that stage.

The fact that Engels actually achieved to make her dream come true is actually a big success for her. Some other highlights I celebrated was the fact that the Italian representative didn’t actually speak English but still participated in this international show with his heart which is actually a beautiful way to think of the spirit of Eurovision regarding that you don’t need a common language to bond and connect. Also I was collecting creations for Vanilla Ninja to maintain positive memories on their second Eurovision experience what I received is most of all this:

The exceptionally insulting presentation and unnecessary remarks after the performances from the German spokesman Thorsten Schorn (more about it in the next article). The artists were great but such a presentation ruins their hard-worked-at-acts for this big show.

But a real blast was the two hosts Victoria Swarowski and Michael Ostrowski who did an excellent job(!) including winning titles while hosting the Grand Final. A stroke of genius. By the way, how come that comedians do speak French so well?

On the whole with its ups and downs it was a positive 70th Eurovision full of extension, fun and unity. I am hoping for the retreated countries to return and anyone remaining positive.