Lied van Liedjes 30

This was the thirtieth Lied van Liedjes to be held. Semi-Finals would occur on the Tuesday 11th and Thursday 13th February 2003. The grand final happening on Saturday 15th February 2003.

=Organization= Lucia Danielsen returned as executive producer, alongside the previous director Eila Kekkonen. Polish coordinator Kacper Walas was appointed. Warsaw was chosen to host as the biggest polish city despite bids from Krakow, Lublin and Lodz. It would take place in music venue Progresja.

=Contest= The contest would continue with previous systems. By now, it had been tradition for the host city team to choose the format they continued with. The polish delegation chose the edition 28 format which lowered to the total amount of shows required to just two semi finals (11th and 13th February) and a grand final (15th February) as opposed to an extra second chance round or any more semi finals. The Pot draw would take place on Saturday 2nd February 2003.

As the contest was the 30th edition, Lucia Danielsen wanted to do something special. She lowered the participation fee greatly to allow for more countries to rejoin the contest. This angered the Polish delegation however who had to spend more expenses than usual for a host city. Poland vowed to withdraw from the following edition to protest this move and recoup costs.

This contest would contain the most countries ever for a Lied van Liedjes with a record 53 participating countries. Two new countries would debut :, who had been trying to debut for a while following Canada and Australia's participations but hadn't had the budget until this edition. joined with participation fee paid by Australia, who wanted more Oceania Commonwealth members to join the contest. Only one nation withdrew. who despite the lower participation fee, didn't have a budget to join this edition due to a deficit at the broadcaster. They promised to return in the next edition. There were many returning countries in this edition too. Firstly, the Commonwealth members of, and  returned to the contest. returned with other non-European countries returning. returned after many editions where they were not present. And surprisingly, despite Israel's participation, Turkey continued to remain in the contest and two North African / Middle Eastern countries returned: and. Among the European countries to return:, and  all returned from the Caucasus with funding from Russian broadcasters. announced it's return after long awaited returned to the contest. and returned despite weak economies and  was funded by the French broadcaster.

The automatic qualifiers remained as the top 5 from the previous edition:, , , , and. Because of the huge increase in participating countries, the amount qualifying from each semi final was increased to 11 from 10. This allowed for 27 countries in the grand final which really stretched the available time. The voting section was heavily condensed.

=Semi Finals=

Semi Final 2
=Finals=

Grand Final
=Other Countries=

Northern Europe

 * - no official statement made.
 * - announced they would not take part in the edition due to financial reasons.
 * - announced they would not take part in the edition due to financial reasons.
 * - no official statement made.

Western Europe

 * - no official statement made.
 * - no official statement made.
 * - no official statement made.
 * - no official statement made.

Eastern Europe

 * - no official statement made.
 * - announced they would not take part in the edition due to financial reasons.
 * - announced they would not take part in the edition due to financial reasons.
 * - announced they would not take part in the edition due to financial reasons.
 * - announced they would not take part in the edition due to financial reasons.
 * - announced they would not take part in the edition due to financial reasons.
 * - announced they would not take part in the edition due to financial reasons.

Southern Europe

 * - no official statement made.
 * - announced they would not take part in the edition due to financial reasons.
 * - announced they would not take part in the edition due to financial reasons.

Americas

 * - no official statement made.

Asia

 * - no official statement made.
 * - no official statement made.
 * - no official statement made.
 * - no official statement made.
 * - no official statement made.
 * - no official statement made. they have yet to debut.
 * - no official statement made. they have yet to debut.
 * - no official statement made. they have yet to debut.
 * - announced they would not take part in the edition due to financial reasons.

Africa

 * - no official statement made.
 * - no official statement made.
 * - no official statement made.
 * - no official statement made.
 * - no official statement made. they have yet to debut.

Oceania

 * - announced they would not take part in the edition due to financial reasons.
 * - announced they would not take part in the edition due to financial reasons.