The Netherlands is returning to Eurovision, but who actually wants to perform?

After months of uncertainty, it has been confirmed that the Netherlands will after all take part in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2027. That year the festival will be held in the Bulgarian city of Burgas, with semi finals on 11 and 13 May and the grand final on 15 May. The return comes after AVROTROS decided in August to once again withdraw from participation and handed responsibility back to the parent organisation NPO. That move created prolonged confusion about whether the Netherlands would even be involved at all.

The organisational structure around the Dutch entry will from now on look fundamentally different from previous years. Where AVROTROS used to both select the artist and broadcast the festival, those tasks have now been split. The NOS will handle the broadcasts, the preview coverage and the commentary from Bulgaria. The selection of the Dutch entry will be placed in the hands of a committee of music experts drawn from multiple broadcasters, put together by NPO.

That new setup immediately runs into practical problems, however. Volkskrant pop editor Els de Grefte explains that NPO deliberately does not want to use experts from AVROTROS, because the team needs to be seen as independent. To achieve that, NPO has asked all other broadcasters to put forward people with music experience, but few broadcasters are actively cooperating. On top of that, some broadcasters already have substantive objections to the festival itself, which undermines NPO's reasoning about independence. The likelihood is that most broadcasters will not send anyone, according to De Grefte.

Even more complicated is the question of who actually wants to represent the Netherlands. The deadline to register a candidate falls as early as December, leaving NPO very little time. According to De Grefte, the ideal candidate would be an established artist with stage experience who already has material ready or has even previously competed in the Song Contest. But willingness to do so has shrunk considerably because of the political context. Artists who do not speak out about Gaza risk public criticism from a large part of their fanbase. De Grefte points to the situation surrounding British artist Ed Sheeran, who dropped rapper Macklemore from his support act following pro Palestinian statements, a decision with major consequences for Sheeran's reputation. In the Netherlands this debate surfaced earlier, most visibly at festivals such as Lowlands and Down the Rabbit Hole, where artists openly spoke out last year.

That makes the position of a potential Dutch participant especially precarious. A large proportion of Dutch pop artists lean left or progressive and will not easily want to associate themselves with an event in which Israel also takes part, according to De Grefte. Add to that the fact that participants earn nothing financially from the festival: no fee is paid out, not even in the event of a win. Artists receive only reimbursements for travel, accommodation and costume costs. The only thing participation offers is an international stage, and the question is whether that outweighs the risk of negative press coverage. Names that have come up in speculation include Davina Michelle, though De Grefte openly wonders whether she would be willing to signal that she finds Israeli participation acceptable.