North Macedonia is one of the 18 competing countries at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2025 in Tbilisi this coming Saturday. Their artist Nela Mančeska will perform “Miracle” in slot number 9 during the show.
Copenhagen 2003
F.Y.R. Macedonia, as they were known at the time, first participated in the inaugural edition of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in 2003, held in Copenhagen. Back then, interested nations had to enter a draw to access the first contest due to demand outweighing capacity.
Marija and Viktorija were the first selected artists for the country, singing “Ti ne me poznavaš“. For the first time in their history, they finished 12th in the contest, an odd tradition which would be repeated several times over.
Lillehammer 2004
F.Y.R. Macedonia continued in the contest for 2004, where they sent Martina Siljanovska. “Zabava” was her entry and she managed to better the first attempt by finishing in 7th place in Lillehammer.
During the voting sequence, only Greece and Belarus did not award Martina any points.
Hasselt 2005
F.Y.R Macedonia were back for a third time with another entry entirely in the Macedonian language. For the first time, they decided to send a male artist to the contest.
At the contest held in Belgium, Denis Dimoski performed in the middle in slot number 8 and coincidentally was where he finished, as his entry “Rodendeski baknež” finished in 8th place, even collecting 10 points from both Serbia and Montenegro and Russia.
Bucharest 2006
Though several original countries had lessening interest at this stage, F.Y.R. Macedonia continued for its fourth participation.
Zana Aliu was selected to represent F.Y.R. Macedonia in a national selection where she originally sent two songs. Sadly at the contest, F.Y.R. Macedonia finished in last place for the first place, collecting only a 12 point head start and 2 further points from Romania.
Rotterdam 2007
Similar to their debut entry, F.Y.R. Macedonia once more tried a duet at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in 2007.
This proved to start a better era in the contest for the country as Rosica Kulakova and Dimitar Stojmenovski reached 5th place overall with their song “Ding Ding Dong”. On the night they also received their first ever sets of 12 points, from Bulgaria and Serbia.
Limassol 2008
Dečja pesna Eurovizije was the selection process used to choose F.Y.R. Macedonia’s entry in 2008. A 50/50 combination of jury and public votes selected Bobi Andonov to represent the country with “Prati mi SMS” from 12 finalists in the selection.
Although no country awarded F.Y.R. Macedonia the maximum of 12 points in Limassol, they were still able to match their best result of 5th place which they held the previous year.
Kyiv 2009
Image source: junioreurovision.tv
Following two top 5 finishes, F.Y.R. Macedonia persevered once more with a selection process in 2009. The selection was won by Sara Markoska, who had previously attempted to represent the country in 2007.
Sara couldn’t quite match the success of the previous two years and her song “Za Ljubovta” finished in 12th place, a position they also hit on their debut in 2003.
Minsk 2010
An eighth consecutive appearance from F.Y.R. Macedonia came in 2010 when the selection show Dečja pesna Eurovizije determined Anja Veterova to be worthy of going to Minsk with the entry “Eooo, Eooo”.
Their Balkan neighbours, Serbia, awarded them 12 points at the contest in the Belarusian capital. However, for a third time they finished in 12th place overall.
Yerevan 2011
September 2011 in Skopje saw another five young artists attempt to represent F.Y.R. Macedonia in Yerevan. In the end, Dorijan Dlaka won the right with “Žimi ovoj frak”.
For the third year in a row, F.Y.R. Macedonia finished the contest in 12th place.
Kyiv 2013
Despite their close neighbours Albania joining the contest for the first time in 2012, F.Y.R. Macedonia decided to pull out due to lack of budget. This left Belgium, Belarus and the Netherlands as the only three countries left to perform in every contest.
They did, however, return after just one year’s leave and changed to an internal selection. Barbara Popović was chosen by broadcaster MRT with the entry “Ohrid i muzika”. Incredibly, they continued their streak of finishing in 12th place for a fourth attempt. This was sadly last place this year as only 12 countries went to Ukraine for the contest.
Sofia 2015
After another poor showing, F.Y.R. Macedonia once again took another year’s hiatus before returning in 2015 when the contest went to Bulgaria for the first time.
MRT continued with internal selections for the contest and for a third time in their history, they selected a duo. Ivana Petkovska and Magdalena Aleksovska took the stage with their entry “Pletenka”.
Sadly for a second attempt in a row, F.Y.R. Macedonia finished last.
Valletta 2016
Determined to reverse their fortunes of their previous two attempts, F.Y.R. Macedonia remained in the contest. This was their 12th appearance and for the very first time an internal selection resulted in an entry that wasn’t fully in Macedonian but instead also included English lyrics.
Martija Stanojković performed for the country in Valletta with the entry “Love Will Lead Our Way”. They successfully avoided the bottom of the board and continued a trend by placing in 12th for a sixth time.
Tbilisi 2017
F.Y.R. Macedonia had a third consecutive appearance at the contest in 2017 when it was Georgia’s turn to host. MRT continued with an internal selection.
Mina Blažev was the unlucky thirteenth artist for the country with the song “Dancing Through Life”, which once again included a mix of Macedonian and English lyrics. Bizarrely, for a second time in their history, F.Y.R. Macedonia began a streak of coming in 12th place at the contest.
Minsk 2018
Image Source: Andres Putting
Marija Spasovska was the artist who represented F.Y.R. Macedonia in 2018. Her song “Doma” was internally chosen by MRT.
Kazakhstan and Serbia awarded the entry 12 points in Minsk, which returned to being a fully Macedonian-language entry. For the third year in a row, they finished in 12th place.
Gliwice 2019
2019 saw a change for the country. After being renamed in the adult contest six months earlier, from this contest they were now titled North Macedonia.
Having just achieved their best ever result at the adult contest this year, North Macedonia were determined to replicate this in the Junior contest. Once again, they opted for an internal selection, resulting in Mila Moskov being the fourth consecutive female artist for the country with the entry “Fire”.
Image Source: Thomas Hanses
For the first time in over a decade, North Macedonia successfully cracked the top 10 when Mila finished in 6th place, the best result for the country since they last hit 5th place in 2008.
Warsaw 2020
Despite a resurgence for North Macedonia, unfortunately momentum was cut short as the country decided to withdraw from Junior Eurovision in 2020 alongside several other countries, due to the uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and how this would effect the show.
Paris 2021
After their break, North Macedonia made a return for Paris in 2021. MRT once more opted to select their entry internally and this time opted to send a mixed group.
“Green Forces” was the selected entry performed by Dajte Muzika. Following the success of Mila, North Macedonia again managed to secure a top 10 finish, this time in 9th place, even securing 12 points from the Albanian jury.
Image Source: Andres Putting / EBU
Yerevan 2022
MRT hosted an audition round in their studios in Skopje to find their entrant for the 2022 contest. A committee originally selected Lara Trpčeska and Irina Dazidovska for Yerevan. Later on, they announced that Jovan Jakimovski was added to the act and thatthey would perform the entry “Životot e pred mene” as Lara feat. Jovan & Irina.
This was the second time in a row that a group was representing North Macedonia and the success of previous years was slightly weakened this time as they finished in 14th place of the 16 competitors.
Image Source: Corinne Cumming/EBU
Nice 2023
North Macedonia returned in 2023 once more for their 18th attendance in Nice. Once more, an audition round was held at MRT Studios in Skopje, which selected Tamara Grujeska with the song “Kaži mi, kaži mi koj”
True to form, for the ninth time in the contest North Macedonia finished in 12th place. This marks half of their appearances now ending with this result.
Image Source: EBU/Corinne Cumming
Madrid 2024
🇲🇰 North Macedonia / Ana & Aleksej performing Marathon at Junior Eurovision 2024, at the First Rehearsal in Caja Mágica, Madrid.
A 19th attempt for North Macedonia came last year when they announced Ana and Aleksej would be representing them with the entry “Marathon”, marking another of their entries which is a duet in both English and Macedonian.
In Madrid, sadly North Macedonia could only secure 16th place, coming last in the online vote and with only San Marino stopping them from finishing last overall at the contest.
Junior Eurovision 2025
Junior Eurovision 2025 will be held on December 13 in Tbilisi after Andria Putkaradze gave Georgia their record-breaking fourth victory with “To My Mom”. The contest will be held at the Olympic Palace, which previously hosted the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in 2017.
A total of 18 countries will participate in Junior Eurovision 2025. These countries are:
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Malta: Eliza Borg – “I Believe”
Azerbaijan: Yağmur – “Miau miau”
Croatia: Marino Vrgoč – “Snovi”
San Marino: Martina Crv – “Beyond the Stars”
Armenia: Albert – “Brave Heart”
Ukraine: Sofia Neresesian – “Motanka”
Ireland: Lottie O’Driscoll Murray – “Rúin”
Netherlands: Meadow – “Freeze”
Poland: Marianna Kłos – “Brightest Light”
North Macedonia: Nela Mančeska – “Miracle”
Montenegro: Asja Džogović – “I tužna i srećna priča”
Italy: Leonardo Giovannangeli – “Rockstar”
Portugal: Inês Gonçalves – “Para onde vai o amor?”
Spain: Gonzalo Pinillos – “Érase una vez (Once Upon a Time)”
Georgia: Anita Abgariani – “Shine like a star”
Cyprus: Rafaella Panteli and Christos Georgiou – “Away”
France: Lou Deleuze – “Ce monde”
Albania: Kroni Pula – “Fruta perime”
Image Source: Corinne Cumming/EBU
