Belgium in the Eurovision Song Contest

Belgium finished last in the contest for the fifth and (as of 2019) final time at the 2000 contest in Stockholm, before achieving its best result of the 21st century in 2003, where Urban Trad sang in an invented language and earned second place with 165 points, losing out to Turkey's Sertab Erener by just two points. Ishtar did the same in 2008, but finished 17th in the first semi-final, failing to qualify for the final. In the Eurovision Song Contest 2009, Belgium participated in the first semi-final on 12 May 2009, however they received just one point which came from Armenia and left them in second-last position.

The 2010 entry for Belgium was Tom Dice, runner-up of the Belgian Flemish version of The X Factor in 2008. Dice was internally selected and announced by VRT on 25 November 2009.[1][2] Tom Dice finished first in the first semi-final, allowing Belgium to participate to the final for the first time since the introduction of the semi-finals. He eventually finished sixth (placing second with the juries), Belgium's best result since 2003 and, along with 1959, the best result ever for a Flemish entrant (since all of Belgium's top five placings have been achieved by representatives of the French-language broadcaster RTBF).[3]

In 2011, the entry for Belgium was Witloof Bay. They did not qualify for the finals, finishing 11th only one point behind Moldova, and thus one point behind the qualification.[4]

Due to the good results and the Flemish population's choice, the VRT cancelled 'Eurosong' selection procedure and chose internally for 2012. For the Eurovision Song Contest 2012, they choose 17-year-old singer Iris but decided to let the public choose what song she would sing to represent Belgium. However, she did not qualify after finishing 17th of 18 entrants in the first semi-final, scoring just 16 points which was the second lowest total of all the 36 semi-final entrants.[5][6][7]

In 2013, Roberto Bellarosa, winner of The Voice Belgique, was chosen to represent Belgium for the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 in Malmö, Sweden. Bellarosa made it into the final and finished in 12th place.[8]

In 2014, VRT organized a national final again[9] and 30 participants were selected to enter the castings. Axel Hirsoux won the national final, with more than 50 percent of the televotes and four times (out of seven international juries) the maximum of 12 points from the international juries. The song which represented Belgium was called 'Mother' and is a slow ballad.[10] The song failed to qualify for the final, finishing 14th out of 16.

In 2015, RTBF chose another "The Voice Belgique" participant Loïc Nottet, who came second in 2014. He represented Belgium with his song Rhythm Inside in the first semi-final of the competition. He managed to qualify and came second with 149 points. In the final Loïc finished fourth with 217 points. It was the best result for Belgium since 2003 and it was the highest number of points ever awarded to Belgium. It was also the first time ever that an entry that finished fourth scored over 200 points.

On 26 May 2015 VRT confirmed that it would use Eurosong again as the national final for the 2016 competition. This time the show only had five participants. Eurosong 2016 would span over three shows, but only in the last show could people vote for the entrant who would represent Belgium at the Eurovision Song Contest 2016. On 17 January 2016 Laura Tesoro won Eurosong 2016 with her song What's the Pressure, co-written by Belgian singer Selah Sue. Other contenders were Tom Frantzis, Adil Aarab, Amaryllis Uitterlinden and Astrid Destuyver.

Laura Tesoro performed last at the second semi-final on 12 May 2016, and qualified for the final by finishing in third place on 274 points. In the final on 14 May 2016, she performed first and placed tenth on 181 points.

The Walloon broadcaster RTBF announced on 22 November 2016 that Ellie Delvaux would represent Belgium in the 2017 contest under her stage name Blanche. Blanche had also appeared on "The Voice Belgique", like her predecessors Roberto Bellarosa (2013), Axel Hirsoux (2014) and Loïc Nottet (2015). It will be the fifth consecutive year that the Belgian representative was a former "The Voice" contestant. Laura Tesoro (2016) previously appeared on the Flemish version "The Voice van Vlaanderen".

On 8 March 2017, the song "City Lights" was officially announced as the Belgian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2017. It was leaked the night before its official release on 7 March 2017 through Spotify. Competing in the first half of the first semi-final on 9 May 2017, Blanche qualified for the final on 13 May and performed in the second half of the show, finishing in fourth place. Blanche's fourth-place finish gave Belgium its third top six result of the decade. The only other decade where Belgium achieved this, was the 1980s.

During the Eurovision weekend of 2017, Peter Van de Veire announced that VRT would internally select the participant for 2018. On 28 September 2017, VRT announced Laura Groeseneken as the Belgian entrant during the talk show Van Gils & gasten, aired on Één.[11][12] Although initially a favorite with bookmakers, "A Matter of Time" was the first Belgian entry since 2014 to not qualify for the final. She finished 12th with 91 points in the first semi-final.

In January 2019, the RTBF announced that it had internally selected Eliot as their representative for the 2019 contest. His song "Wake Up" was released on the 28th of February 2019. The song was written and produced by Pierre Dumoulin, who also wrote and produced "City Lights" by Blanche. The song competed in the first semi-final on 16 May 2019, but failed to qualify for the grand final for the second year in a row. It was the first RTBF act not to qualify since 2011. The entry finished 13th in the first semi-final scoring 70 points.

During the 2019 contest, Flemish broadcaster VRT announced that it already was searching a representative for the 2020 contest and that it already had contacted several artists. The broadcaster also revealed that the selection would happen internally and that it would not bring its national final back in 2020.[13] On the 1st of October 2019 Hooverphonic was announced as the Belgian representative for the 2020 contest during the talk show "Vandaag".[14] Their song Release Me was released on the 17th of February and was supposed to be performed in the second half of the first semi-final on the 12th of May. The contest was officially cancelled on the 18th of March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Several days after the announcement broadcasters RTBF and VRT agreed that the band would be their representative for the 2021 contest.[15]

Belgium has two public broadcast stations VRT (Dutch speaking region) & RTBF (French speaking region). Both broadcast the event and over the years VRT and RTBF commentary has been provided by several experienced radio and television presenters, including Nand Baert, Jacques Mercier, Luc Appermont and Paule Herreman. However, from the 1991 Contest, André Vermeulen has provided the Dutch language commentary every year, with the exception of the 1996 Contest. Whilst Jean-Pierre Hautier has provided the French language commentary every year since the 1994 Contest until the 2013 contest. In 1962, then BRT used the commentary from NOS (The Netherlands broadcast), the reason for that was unknown.

Since 1998 VRT has supplied a dual commentator to join André Vermeulen, between 1999 and 2010 Dual commentary was provided by Bart Peeters and Anja Daems. Peeters provided the commentary during the years when VRT selected the entries whilst Daems commentated the years RTBF selected the entries. Since 2011 Sven Pichal has replaced Daems as commentator, whilst Peter Van de Veire has replaced Peeters. Since 2007 Jean-Louis Lahaye has joint Jean-Pierre Hautier as dual commentator for RTBF. After Hautier's death in 2012 Lahaye was joined by Maureen Louys in 2013.