{"id":613140,"date":"2025-12-05T05:06:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T05:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/613140\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T05:06:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T05:06:15","slug":"ireland-spain-and-others-withdraw-from-eurovision-as-israel-granted-2026-entry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/613140\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland, Spain, and Others Withdraw from Eurovision As Israel Granted 2026 Entry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Slovakia have all withdrawn from the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest after the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) declined to hold a vote on Israel\u2019s participation in the competition during its general assembly meeting today (Thursday, December 4). The Eurovision organizer had postponed an earlier planned vote<\/a> after Israel and the Palestinian political group Hamas signed a ceasefire agreement in October.<\/p>\n

A statement<\/a> from the EBU reads, in part, \u201cA large majority of Members agreed that there was no need for a further vote on participation and that the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 should proceed as planned, with the additional safeguards in place.\u201d Participating broadcasters only voted to adopt rules that would prevent governments and third parties from promoting songs.<\/p>\n

Irish public broadcaster RT\u00c9 was the first to announce it was pulling out of Eurovision, writing in a statement<\/a> that “Ireland\u2019s participation remains unconscionable given the appalling loss of lives in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there.\u201d Spanish national broadcasting network RTVE<\/a>, the Netherlands\u2019 Avotros<\/a>, and Slovenia\u2019s RTVSLO<\/a> all followed suit. Collectively, the four countries represent a total of 14 Eurovision victories, with Ireland holding the record\u2014tied with Sweden\u2014for most wins by a country with seven.<\/p>\n

In October, German chancellor Friedrich Merz threatened<\/a> to boycott Eurovision if Israel were to be excluded from the competition. \u201cI think it\u2019s a scandal that this is even being discussed. Israel has a place there,\u201d he told the country\u2019s public broadcaster, ARD, in an interview. Austria\u2019s host network, ORF, has also supported<\/a> Israel\u2019s participation. Austrian singer JJ won Eurovision earlier this year.<\/p>\n

The 70th Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Vienna, Austria in May 2026. Israel has won the competition four times, most recently in 2018<\/a> for Netta\u2019s \u201cToy.\u201d The country was required to change the lyrics<\/a> to its 2024 entry song, \u201cOctober Rain,\u201d after facing strong opposition<\/a> from European artists and politicians. Russia was banned<\/a> from Eurovision in 2022 after its invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Slovakia have all withdrawn from the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest after the European…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,285,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-613140","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-politics","11":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115665225838992960","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613140","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=613140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}