{"id":612128,"date":"2025-12-04T18:03:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T18:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/612128\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T18:03:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T18:03:19","slug":"spain-rtve-withdraws-from-eurovision-2026-eurovision-news-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/612128\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain: RTVE withdraws from Eurovision 2026! &#8211; Eurovision News | Music"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"304\" data-end=\"676\">Following AVROTROS\u2019 statement, <strong>RTVE<\/strong> has become the latest broadcaster to make its official announcement regarding Eurovision 2026. Spanish broadcaster RTVE has confirmed that it <strong>will<\/strong> <strong data-start=\"487\" data-end=\"542\">not participate <\/strong>in the 70th Eurovision Song Contest, following a decision taken earlier at the EBU General Assembly in Geneva, where a proposal to reopen a voting regarding Israel\u2019s participation was rejected.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"678\" data-end=\"854\">As Israel has been allowed to compete at Eurovision 2026, RTVE has chosen to withdraw, marking the first time <strong>Spain<\/strong> will be absent from the contest since its debut in 1961.<\/p>\n<p>The timeline<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"856\" data-end=\"1282\">The broadcaster sent a letter to the EBU in May requesting that a debate be opened on Israel\u2019s participation in the contest. In September, RTVE directly threatened to withdraw if no action was taken. The corporation\u2019s president, Jos\u00e9 Pablo L\u00f3pez, said on Thursday, just hours before the Assembly meeting, that the EBU and Eurovision had subjected the contest to \u201cthe greatest internal tension in its history\u201c.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1527\" data-end=\"1815\">Spain\u2019s Prime Minister, Pedro S\u00e1nchez, has also publicly supported Israel\u2019s expulsion from the contest. \u201cIf no one objected when Russia\u2019s invasion began and it was required to leave international competitions and not participate in Eurovision, then neither should Israel\u201c, he said in May.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1817\" data-end=\"2032\">According to L\u00f3pez, who promoted the withdrawal proposal before RTVE\u2019s Board of Directors, the EBU has become an organization influenced by \u201cpolitical and commercial interests\u201d that \u201chave not been properly managed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2034\" data-end=\"2326\">RTVE\u2019s management has also expressed opposition to the new voting regulations announced by the EBU, which include halving the maximum number of viewer votes from 20 to 10, as well as the introduction of new technical security measures aimed at preventing coordinated or fraudulent voting.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2034\" data-end=\"2326\"><strong>Stay tuned to EurovisionFun for all the news!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rtve.es\/noticias\/20251204\/eurovision-2026-anuncio-uer-participacion-israel\/16845370.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">RTVE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following AVROTROS\u2019 statement, RTVE has become the latest broadcaster to make its official announcement regarding Eurovision 2026. Spanish&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,191116,66838,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-612128","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-eurovision-2026-spain","11":"tag-rtve","12":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115662618802088697","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612128","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=612128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}