For the first time ever the Contest was held in the same country on consecutive years. The contest welcomed 7 new nations, the biggest influx of debut countries since the inaugural event. Having missed out in the qualifying round the previous year Hungary, Estonia, Romania & Slovakia all made their debuts and were joined by Russia, Lithuania & Poland. Elisabeth Andreassen was back again. Having been half of Chips for Sweden in 1982 and half of Bobbysocks for Norway in 1985, she was again back for Norway this time with Jan Werner Danielsen. Evridiki tried again for Cyprus and just as she had 2 years earlier she finished 11th. Sigga had ditched her fellow member of Stjornin and Heart2Heart and came back on her own. Marie Bergman had been a memeber of Family Four for Sweden in 1971 and 1972. She returned 22 years after her last appearance this time with Roger Pontare who himself would return to the contest 6 years later. Half of the Bosnian duo, Alma Cardzic, was making the first of 2 appearances. Much was made of the age of the Dutch singer before the contest, she was 59, but whether it was her age or her song which gave her the poor result remains open to debate. A major advancement was made with the giving of votes this year as for the first time video links were used to speak to the spokespeople. The voting itself was incredibly one-sided, although after the first 3 sets of votes (Sweden, Finland & Ireland) it looked as though Hungary would run away with the title as they had scored 12 from each jury (the first (and only) time that any country had received the top marks from the first 3 juries). Ireland soon took the lead and never relinquished it. The song was seen by some commentators as a gentle attempt not to win, the jurors disagreed and it soon became the first song to score more than 200 points. Poland, on their debut, finished a distant 2nd but still had the best debut result ever. Hungary faded slightly but still finished 4th. At the other end of the spectrum for the debut makers, Lithuania became the 2nd country after Portugal in 1964 to score 0 on their debut. Estonia fared little better scoring just 2, thanks to the Greek jury (who incidentally were the only country not to vote for Ireland....they actually ignored all of the top 4 entries)

Results
1.(3) 226 points - Ireland - Rock N' Roll Kids - Paul Harrington & Charlie McGettigan
2.(24) 166 points - Poland - To Nie Ja - Edyta Gorniak
3.(14) 128 points - Germany - Wir geben 'ne Party - MeKaDo
4.(22) 122 points - Hungary - Kinek mondjam el vétkeimet - Friderika
5.(12) 97 points - Malta - More Than Love - Moira & Chris
6.(17) 76 points - Norway - Duett - Elisabeth Andreassen & Jan Werner Danielsen
7.(25) 74 points - France - Je suis un vrai garçon - Nina Morato
8.(8 ) 73 points - Portugal - Chamar a musica - Sara Tavares
9.(23) 70 points - Russia - Vyechniy stranik - Youddiph
10.(6) 63 points - United Kingdom - Lonely Symphony - Frances Ruffelle
11.(4) 51 points - Cyprus - Ime anthropos ke ego - Evridiki
12.(5) 49 points - Iceland - Nætur - Sigga
13.(1) 48 points - Sweden - Stjärnorna - Marie Bergman & Roger Pontare
14.(19) 44 points - Greece - To trehadiri - Costas Bigalis & The Sea Lovers
15.(18) 39 points - Bosnia & Herzegovina - Ostani kraj mene - Alma & Dejan
16.(7) 27 points - Croatia - Nek' ti bude ljubav sva - Tony Cetinski
17.(20) 19 points - Austria - Für den Frieden der Welt - Petra Frey
18.(21) 17 points - Spain - Ella no es ella - Alejandro Abad
19.(9) 15 points - Switzerland - Sto pregando - Duilio
(15) 15 points - Slovakia - Nekonecna piesen - Tublatanka
21.(11) 14 points - Romania - Dincolo de nori - Dan Bittman
22.(2) 11 points - Finland - Bye Bye Baby - CatCat
23.(13) 4 points - Netherlands - Waar is de zon - Willeke Alberti
24.(10) 2 points - Estonia - Nagu merelaine - Silvi Vrait
25.(16) 0 points - Lithuania - Lopsine mylimai - Oyvidijus Vysniauskas