“The vast majority of members agreed that there was no need to hold a further vote on participation and that the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 should take place as planned,” the EBU said in a statement.
Since 1999, Spain has been one of the so-called The Big Four (since 2011 the “Big Five”), who are guaranteed a place in the final of the competition due to paying the largest contributions to the organization of the competition – for this reason, Madrid's decision has a special significance.
“Culture unites, but not at all costs,” said Taco Zimmerman, general director of the Dutch television station AVROTROS, on Thursday, December 4. “Universal values such as humanitarianism and press freedom have been seriously violated, and for us these values are non-negotiable.”
Germany, in turn, has warned that it may withdraw from the competition if Israel is not allowed to participate.
Before the vote, Golan Yochpaz, a senior director of Israeli public television, spoke of “an attempt to exclude KAN [izraelskiej telewizji publicznej] from the competition”, which “can only be understood as a cultural boycott”.
Irish public broadcaster RTE said it “considered Ireland's participation to be unjustified, given the horrific loss of life in the Gaza Strip and the humanitarian crisis that continues to threaten the lives of so many civilians.”
Spanish radio and television broadcaster RTVE said it had lost confidence in Eurovision. RTVE president Jose Pablo Lopez said that “what happened at the EBU assembly confirms that Eurovision is not a song contest, but a festival dominated by geopolitical interests and divided.”
At its meeting in Geneva, the EBU agreed on measures to “limit the disproportionate influence of third parties, including government-backed campaigns”, and limited the number of audience votes to 10 “per payment method”. RTVE considered this change “insufficient”.
Israel at Eurovision. Countries are boycotting
Several European television stations accused the Israeli government of interfering in the vote — after Israel received the most audience votes during the final.
Israeli representative Yuval Raphael, May 11, 2025Harold Cunningham/Getty Images / Stringer / Getty Images
The EBU has been in discussions with its members about Israel's involvement since the issue was raised at a June meeting of national broadcasters in London.
Eurovision is organized by the EBU, a public media group with 113 members from 56 countries. The competition has long declared itself to be “apolitical”, although in 2022 the EBU excluded Russia from the competition in the wake of the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing approximately 1,200 people in Israel, most of whom were civilians, and taking 251 hostages. This attack triggered an Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip, resulting in 90% of the deaths. The population of the Gaza Strip was displaced and the vast majority of the inhabited areas were destroyed. According to new estimates by scientists from the Max Planck Institute, 100,000 people died or were killed in the first two years of the war in the Gaza Strip. to over 125 thousand people. The number of injured is approximately 170,000. According to a UN report, Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
