Introduction

The singer Iris has been determined by the Flemish broadcaster a long time ago, the suitable song has been chosen in a TV show. The song “Would you?” has won with a small margin. Iris is a young and very sympathetic singer; her song is a soft and lovely ballad with a climax. As Belgium has to qualify for the big final, Iris has to compete in the first semi final which might be a bit weaker than the second semi final. But there are not too many ballads there, only Finland, Latvia and Iceland. With a beautiful stage and a strong background choir in Baku this song might do well.

History

Belgium is celebrating its 55^th song in the Eurovision Song Contest this year. Due to the fact the Belgium has two languages and regions Flanders and Wallonia the Belgian representative is coming alternately each year. In former years the French songs from Wallonia have been more successful but in the last decades the Flemish entries made the best results. The only Belgian winner was Sandra Kim in 1986 with “J’aime la vie”. Over all these years there have many good places in the top 10, the closest to win again was “Sanomi” by Urban Trad in 2003 (2^nd), furthermore “L'amour ça Fait Chanter La Vie” by Jean Vallée in 1978 (2^nd) and recently “Me and my guitar” by Tom Dice in 2010 (6^th).

Due to the introduction of the semi finals in 2004 some countries are struggling to qualify for the grand final on Saturday. Belgium is one of the countries which had some difficulties lately, only two times Belgium could qualify. It has also to be taken into consideration that the competition has grown over the years. The Eastern European countries are making the half of the participating countries nowadays, so therefore some well established countries have to make the way to the new countries. At the end it forces the composers to bring higher quality songs into the competition; there are fewer places for weak songs.