Slovenia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2021

Prior to the 2021 contest, Slovenia had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest twenty-six times since its first entry in 1993.[1] Slovenia's highest placing in the contest, to this point, has been seventh place, which the nation achieved on two occasions: in 1995 with the song "Prisluhni mi" performed by Darja Švajger and in 2001 with the song "Energy" performed by Nuša Derenda. The country's only other top ten result was achieved in 1997 when Tanja Ribič performing "Zbudi se" placed tenth. Since the introduction of semi-finals to the format of the contest in 2004, Slovenia had thus far only managed to qualify to the final on six occasions. In 2018, Slovenia was represented by Lea Sirk and the song "Hvala, ne!", which qualified to the final and placed twenty-second. One year later, in 2019, Slovenia qualified for the final again with Zala Kralj & Gašper Šantl, finishing in fifteenth place with the song "Sebi".

The Slovenian national broadcaster, Radiotelevizija Slovenija (RTV Slovenija), broadcasts the event within Slovenia and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. RTV Slovenija confirmed Slovenia's participation in the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest on 16 May 2020. The Slovenian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest has traditionally been selected through a national final entitled Evrovizijska Melodija (EMA), which has been produced with variable formats. For 2021, the broadcaster opted to organise an internal selection to select the Slovenian entry. To this point, the broadcaster has only foregone the use of the national final in 2013 when the Slovenian entry was internally selected.

According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big 5" (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) are required to qualify from one of two semi-finals in order to compete in the final; the top ten countries from each semi-final progress to the final. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) split up the competing countries into six different pots based on voting patterns from previous contests, with countries with favourable voting histories put into the same pot. For the 2021 contest, the semi-final allocation draw held for 2020 which was held on 28 January 2020, was used for 2021 contest. Slovenia was placed into the first semi-final, which was held on 18 May 2021, and was scheduled to perform in the first half of the show.[6]

Once all the competing songs for the 2021 contest had been released, the running order for the semi-finals was decided by the shows' producers rather than through another draw, so that similar songs were not placed next to each other. Slovenia was set to perform in position 2, following the entry from Lithuania and preceding the entry from Russia.[7]

At the end of the show Slovenia was not announced among 10 qualifiers of the first semi-final and therefore did not qualify to compete in the final.

Points awarded to Slovenia

Points awarded to Slovenia (Semi-final 1)[12]

Score	Televote	Jury
12 points
10 points
8 points
7 points		Romania
6 points		Cyprus
5 points	Croatia	Malta
4 points		Azerbaijan  Norway  Ukraine
3 points	North Macedonia	Israel  North Macedonia
2 points
1 point

Points awarded by Slovenia

Points awarded by Slovenia (Semi-final 1)[12] Score Televote Jury 12 points  Croatia  Cyprus 10 points  Ukraine  Russia 8 points  North Macedonia  Azerbaijan 7 points  Russia  Croatia 6 points  Norway  Malta 5 points  Malta  Belgium 4 points  Belgium  North Macedonia 3 points  Azerbaijan  Norway 2 points  Sweden  Israel 1 point  Cyprus  Ukraine

Points awarded by Slovenia (Final)[13] Score Televote Jury 12 points  Serbia  Italy 10 points  Italy  Iceland 8 points  Greece  Russia 7 points  Ukraine   Switzerland 6 points  France  Belgium 5 points   Switzerland  Malta 4 points  Finland  Finland 3 points  Iceland  Greece 2 points  Norway  France 1 point  Russia  Israel

Detailed voting results

The following members comprised the Slovene jury:[10][11]

• Bojan Cvjetićanin
• Nuša Derenda
• Boštjan Grabnar
• Maja Keuc (Amaya)
• Aleš Vovk (Raay)

Detailed voting results from Slovenia (Semi-final 1)[12]

Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		Juror A	Juror B	Juror C	Juror D	Juror E	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Lithuania	10	13	10	11	10	12		12
02	Slovenia
03	Russia	2	2	2	3	14	2	10	4	7
04	Sweden	12	7	12	8	8	11		9	2
05	Australia	11	12	11	15	15	14		15
06	North Macedonia	13	4	8	14	3	7	4	3	8
07	Ireland	15	14	15	12	12	15		14
08	Cyprus	1	3	3	2	2	1	12	10	1
09	Norway	9	6	7	9	9	8	3	5	6
10	Croatia	8	5	5	1	4	4	7	1	12
11	Belgium	4	10	1	13	5	6	5	7	4
12	Israel	6	9	13	10	6	9	2	11
13	Romania	14	15	14	7	13	13		13
14	Azerbaijan	3	8	4	5	1	3	8	8	3
15	Ukraine	7	11	9	6	11	10	1	2	10
16	Malta	5	1	6	4	7	5	6	6	5

Detailed voting results from Slovenia (Final)[13]

Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		Juror A	Juror B	Juror C	Juror D	Juror E	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Cyprus	13	9	15	7	12	15		15
02	Albania	10	12	9	15	5	11		12
03	Israel	5	11	8	14	7	10	1	22
04	Belgium	6	17	4	20	4	5	6	19
05	Russia	2	1	1	9	13	3	8	10	1
06	Malta	11	3	12	5	17	6	5	13
07	Portugal	14	20	19	18	18	19		18
08	Serbia	16	5	11	10	15	13		1	12
09	United Kingdom	20	25	25	26	26	25		25
10	Greece	18	10	10	11	2	8	3	3	8
11	Switzerland	4	2	6	4	3	4	7	6	5
12	Iceland	1	6	3	1	8	2	10	8	3
13	Spain	22	21	21	23	21	21		23
14	Moldova	23	26	24	22	19	23		26
15	Germany	24	24	22	24	24	24		17
16	Finland	12	14	13	3	6	7	4	7	4
17	Bulgaria	19	18	16	19	20	20		20
18	Lithuania	21	22	20	16	10	18		14
19	Ukraine	8	15	7	12	11	12		4	7
20	France	7	8	5	8	16	9	2	5	6
21	Azerbaijan	9	16	14	17	9	16		16
22	Norway	17	4	17	13	14	14		9	2
23	Netherlands	25	23	23	25	25	26		24
24	Italy	3	7	2	2	1	1	12	2	10
25	Sweden	15	13	18	6	23	17		11
26	San Marino	26	19	26	21	22	22		21