{"id":597643,"date":"2025-11-27T18:27:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T18:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/597643\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T18:27:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T18:27:16","slug":"%f0%9f%87%aa%f0%9f%87%b8-spain-rtve-considers-rule-changes-insufficient-maintains-position-on-israels-eurovision-participation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/597643\/","title":{"rendered":"\ud83c\uddea\ud83c\uddf8 Spain: RTVE Considers Rule Changes Insufficient & Maintains Position on Israel’s Eurovision Participation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The president of RTVE, Jos\u00e9 Pablo L\u00f3pez appeared in front of the Joint Parliamentary Control Committee of the Corporation, outlining RTVE\u2019s stance regarding Eurovision 2026.<\/p>\n

RTVE has reaffirmed that it will withdraw from the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 should Israel compete in the Eurovision Song Contest. He reconfirmed that:<\/p>\n

\u201cRTVE\u2019s position remains unchanged: We have maintained the same position for months, which is that Israel\u2019s presence is untenable\u2026we are talking about a genocide in Gaza, and that Eurovision is a competition, but human rights are not a competition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jos\u00e9 Pablo L\u00f3pez highlighted in his comments to the committee that:<\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael has broken the rules and has not been sanctioned for at least the last two years. Any other country that had engaged in this practice would have been sanctioned.\u201d<\/p>\n

With regards to the changes to the rules which were announced by the European Broadcasting Union, Mr L\u00f3pez was clear:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe measures are not enough and do not guarantee that a government like Israel\u2019s or any other government cannot occur.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that:<\/p>\n

\u201cMartin Green, the Eurovision Director, recently wrote a letter stating that television networks and artists do not represent governments and that this is a cultural competition. <\/p>\n

I wonder, is Mr.\u00a0Green considering the return of Russian and Belarusian broadcasters to the festival? I hope not, because we all know that if those networks return, they would use it in a similar way\u00a0to Israel, because for them, the contest is much more than just a competition and has a very significant political dimension.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The EBU knows that these measures are a step forward, but they are not enough, and above all, as I have said, they leave Israel\u2019s actions during this period unsanctioned.\u00a0More measures are necessary, and that will be the proposal we will take to the next General Assembly, which will be held on the 4th and 5th.<\/p>\n

What we were asking for 4 or 5 months ago is the same thing we are asking for again today.\u201d<\/p>\n

RTVE is the first broadcaster to publicly state that it does not believe that the rule changes being introduced for the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 are enough. The Governing Body of RTVE\u00a0previously voted<\/a>\u00a0in September that should Israel be allowed to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest 2026, they would withdraw.<\/p>\n

The European Broadcasting Union explained last week<\/a> that the changes to the rules have been approved by the Eurovision Song Contest Reference Group and will be monitored and reviewed following the Eurovision Song Contest 2026. EBU members \u201cwill be asked to consider this package of measures and safeguards and decide if they are sufficient to meet their concerns around participation without having a vote on the topic.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement to SVT, Dave Goodman, a spokesperson for the EBU, confirmed that:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope that the package of measures assures members that we have taken strong measures to protect the neutrality and impartiality of the competition going forward. Only if they believe that the measures are not sufficient will there be a vote on who is allowed to compete.\u201d<\/p>\n

Melody represented Spain at the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest in Basel with her song \u201cEsa Diva\u201d. She finished in 24th place in the Grand Final with 37 points.<\/p>\n

Image Source: Sarah Louise Bennett\/EBU | Source: Eurovision Spain<\/a> \/ RTVE<\/p>\n

Spain debuted in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1961 and has competed annually since, making them the longest participating country that has never withdrawn. Spain has won the contest on two occasions. The first time was in 1968, when Massiel sang \u201cLa la la\u201d. and the second time was in 1969, when Salom\u00e9 sang \u201cVivo cantando\u201d. 1969 is the only year where more than one song has won the contest. The 1969 contest saw a four-way tie between Spain, France, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. <\/p>\n

Like this:<\/p>\n

Like Loading…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"\t<\/p>\n

Posted by:Anthony Granger<\/p>\n

Since launching Eurovoix in April 2011, it has been a pleasure to find out more about this amazing continent through the Eurovision Family of Events. From starting out as a small site, it’s been brilliant to see the site grow and flourish and continue to bring our readers everything from the world of Eurovision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The president of RTVE, Jos\u00e9 Pablo L\u00f3pez appeared in front of the Joint Parliamentary Control Committee of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-597643","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115623077820967390","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}