Bulgaria's Poli Genova to Perform at Eurovision Semifinal on Thursday

Poli Genova of Bulgaria performs the song `If Love Was A Crime` during rehearsals for the Second Semi-Final of the 61st annual Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) at the Ericsson Globe in Stockholm, Sweden, 11 May 2016. Photo: EPA

The Bulgarian representative at this year's edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, Poli Genova, will perform in the second semifinal taking place in Stockholm on Thursday evening.

Genova, who had previously represented Bulgaria in 2011, will compete with the song “If Love Was a Crime”. The Bulgarian representative will be the twelfth out of eighteen artists to perform on Thursday.

Bulgaria will compete with Latvia, Poland, Switzerland, Israel, Belarus, Serbia, Ireland, Macedonia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Denmark, Ukraine, Norway, Georgia, Albania, Belgium and Australia. Ten of the countries will qualify for the final on Saturday.

In the first semifinal held on Tuesday, Russia, Malta, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Netherlands, Hungary, Croatia, Austria, the Czech Republic and Cyprus secured their place at the final.

At the final, the twenty countries qualifying from the two semifinals will be joined by France, Germany, Spain, the UK and Italy which qualify automatically for the final due to being the biggest financial contributors to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

A total of 42 countries are participating in the 61^st edition of the contest, with Australia making its second appearance.

The Ericsson Globe in the Swedish capital is hosting the 2016 edition of the song contest after Mans Zelmerlow won last year with “Heroes”.

The second semifinal begins at 22 o'clock (EET) and will be broadcasted live on the Bulgarian National Television (BNT) and its HD channel as well as on the website of Eurovision (eurovision.tv) and its YouTube channel.

Bulgaria is returning to Eurovision after not participating in the last two editions of the contest.

Since its debut in 2005, Bulgaria has qualified for the final only once in 2007 when the country was represented by Stoyan Yankoulov and Elitsa Todorova who finished fifth in the final standing.

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