Maltese song writing duo – Philip Vella and Gerard James Borg, in collaboration with a Bulgarian music producer, have made it to the Bulgarian national finals for the Eurovision song contest with the pop song Wish, performed by Neda Karova & Da.

Twenty-four songs were selected early last month to compete in the first Bulgarian semi-finals, and Saturday evening saw the best 12 songs make it to the final stage, The song to represent Bulgaria in Athens will be chosen in two weeks’ time.

With songs in Malta, Belgium, and Bulgaria, this has been a record-breaking year for the Maltese duo. Gerard James Borg has also participated in the Norwegian selection, where his song, Absolutely Fabulous, ranked third out of 600 entries, and has fast become one of the most popular and most talked about entries in the 2006 national finals.

This will be Bulgaria’s second participation in the Eurovision song contest.