Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands and Slovenia will boycott next year’s Eurovision Song Contest, after Israel was allowed to compete.
They were among a number of countries who had called for Israel to be excluded over the humanitarian toll of the war in Gaza, and accusations of unfair voting practices.
Despite calls for a vote on Israel’s participation, members instead approved a new set of rules intended to protect the integrity of the contest.
Ireland’s national broadcaster RTE said it felt that its “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.”
In a statement, Dutch broadcaster Avrotros said that “participation under the current circumstances is incompatible with the public values that are essential to us”.
Spanish broadcaster RTVE added: “The board of directors of RTVE agreed last September that Spain would withdraw from Eurovision if Israel was part of it.”
“This withdrawal also means that RTVE will not broadcast the Eurovision 2026 final… nor the preliminary semi-finals.”
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whilst i agree, i think it’s also important to acknowledge that non-participation in ESC isn’t about non-participation in ESC… it’s not like they’re not participating because they don’t like israel’s songs; it’s about a principal. if the decision was made about israel to do with ESC it says something about the EBUs values and how it’s being run
non-participation isn’t meant as a punishment, and it’s not even really about ESC: it’s meant to be a statement to the EBU as a whole: we don’t support this and won’t support anyone who does