Eurovision<\/a> song contest 2026 should proceed as planned, with the additional safeguards in place,\u201d the EBU said in a statement.<\/p>\nIn response, the Irish broadcaster RT\u00c9 said it would not participate in the 2026 contest or broadcast the competition. \u201cRT\u00c9 feels that Ireland\u2019s participation remains unconscionable given the appalling loss of lives in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there, which continues to put the lives of so many civilians at risk,\u201d the broadcaster said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The Spanish broadcaster RTVE also said it would not broadcast the contest or the semi-finals in Vienna next year, describing the process of decision-making as \u201cinsufficient\u201d and engendering \u201cdistrust\u201d.<\/p>\n
The BBC indicated it would broadcast next year\u2019s competition, saying: \u201cWe support the collective decision made by members of the EBU. This is about enforcing the rules of the EBU and being inclusive,\u201d it said. The German broadcaster SWR confirmed it would participate.<\/p>\n
The Spanish national broadcaster, along with seven other countries, had formally requested a secret ballot at a summit of broadcasters in Geneva on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe EBU presidency has denied RTVE\u2019s request for a specific vote on Israel\u2019s participation. This decision increases RTVE\u2019s distrust of the festival\u2019s organisation and confirms the political pressure surrounding it,\u201d it said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Spain\u2019s culture minister, Ernest Urtasun, backed the boycott. He said: \u201cYou can\u2019t whitewash Israel given the genocide in Gaza. Culture should be on the side of peace and justice. I\u2019m proud of an RTVE that puts human rights before any economic interest.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement released on Thursday afternoon, the Dutch broadcaster Avrotros said it would also withdraw from next year\u2019s contest. \u201cAfter weighing all perspectives, Avrotros concludes that, under the current circumstances, participation cannot be reconciled with the public values that are fundamental to our organisation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Slovenian national broadcaster, RTVSLO \u2013 the first to threaten a boycott this summer \u2013 said participation \u201cwould conflict with its values of peace, equality and respect\u201d.<\/p>\n
At the meeting on Thursday, EBU members discussed new rules designed to stop governments and third parties from promoting songs to influence voters.<\/p>\n
Some countries had raised concerns over undue promotion methods after Israel topped the public vote at the contest in May, finishing second overall after the jury votes were taken into consideration.<\/p>\n
The proposed rule changes were seen as an olive branch to broadcasters critical of Israel, but appear to have been deemed insufficient to most of the nations who had signalled their willingness to boycott the event.<\/p>\n
Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland, Spain, Slovenia and the Netherlands all pull out of the annual contest after it was decided not to hold a vote on Israel\u2019s participation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":189186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-319516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=319516"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":319517,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319516\/revisions\/319517"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/189186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=319516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=319516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=319516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}