Following their year off in 2020 due to COVID-19 related concerns, the country of Albania will return to the Junior Eurovision Contest in 2021. The country was among eight countries that pulled out of the contest including fan favorites Italy, Ireland, Wales, North Macedonia, Armenia, Australia, and Portugal. All other broadcasters cited COVID-19 as the reason for their withdraw.
RTSH confirmed their participation to Eurofestivales earlier today, stating that they will have additional announcements to come about their participation. RTSH confirmed that they will have more detailed announcement about their participation in the coming days, which will likely include details about their selection method for 2021. Albania has used a variety of national finals to select their JESC entrant including Junior Fest Albania (2012), Festivali i Këngës për Femije, and Junior Fest (2017-2019), so it would not be unheard of for them to use a similar national final to select their representative and song for 2021.
Albania will now join Azerbaijan (last participated in 2018), Ireland, North Macedonia, and Portugal as returning countries for 2021. As the year progresses it is likely that additional countries will join the list for Paris. The current list for the contest is as follows:
- Albania
- Azerbaijan
- France
- Georgia
- Germany
- Ireland
- Netherlands
- North Macedonia
- Portugal
- Russia
- Serbia
- Spain
- Ukraine
Junior Eurovision 2021 will take place in Paris on December 19th, 2021 with the official slogan Imagine, after Valentina’s winning song J’Imagine.
What do you think about Albania’s return to JESC? Are #YOU excited to find out their song for Paris? Let us know in the comments below, on social media @ESCUnited, and on our forum page!