{"id":613235,"date":"2025-12-05T06:09:31","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T06:09:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/613235\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T06:09:31","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T06:09:31","slug":"eurovision-in-turmoil-as-countries-stage-boycott-over-israels-place-in-contest-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/613235\/","title":{"rendered":"Eurovision in turmoil as countries stage boycott over Israel\u2019s place in contest \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The EBU in Geneva also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ebu.ch\/news\/2025\/11\/ebu-announces-changes-to-eurovision-song-contest-voting-rules-to-strengthen-trust-and-transparency\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.ebu.ch\/news\/2025\/11\/ebu-announces-changes-to-eurovision-song-contest-voting-rules-to-strengthen-trust-and-transparency\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">agreed on measures<\/a> to \u201ccurb disproportionate third-party influence, including government-backed campaigns,\u201d and limited the number of public votes to 10 \u201cper payment method.\u201d RTVE <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rtve.es\/rtve\/20251204\/rtve-retira-festival-eurovision\/16845362.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">called<\/a> the change \u201cinsufficient.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Controversy earlier this year prompted the changes, when several European broadcasters <a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/eurovision-to-change-voting-rules-after-claims-of-israeli-government-interference-13473662\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">alleged<\/a> that the Israeli government had interfered in the voting \u2014 after Israel received the largest number of public votes during the final.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/GettyImages-2214853479-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7610385\"  \/>On the other side of the debate, Germany had warned it could pull out of the contest if Israel was not allowed to take part. | Fabrice Coffrini\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>The EBU has been in talks with its members\u00a0about Israel\u2019s participation since the issue was raised at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ebu.ch\/news\/2025\/07\/ebu-statement-on-eurovision-song-contest-general-assembly-discussion\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a June meeting of national broadcasters<\/a>\u00a0in London.<\/p>\n<p>Eurovision is run by the EBU, an alliance of public service media with 113 members in 56 countries. The contest has long proclaimed that it is \u201cnon-political,\u201d but in 2022, the EBU\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/russia-kicked-out-eurovision-song-contest\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">banned Russia<\/a>\u00a0from the competition following the Kremlin\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people in Israel, a large majority of whom were civilians, and taking 251 hostages. The attack prompted a major Israeli military offensive in Gaza, which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, many of them civilians, displaced 90 percent of Gaza\u2019s population and destroyed wide areas. <\/p>\n<p>The ceasefire brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump in October 2025 led to the release of the remaining 20 Israeli hostages.<\/p>\n<p>Shawn Pogatchnik contributed to this report. <a href=\"https:\/\/stylebook.politicoapps.com\/general-israel-gaza-6ef6f9fa0cb14f90a0dd8d99ada05bbe#rule-c397acb3-b3ea-4761-81ca-ee0ba8dafa7e\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The EBU in Geneva also agreed on measures to \u201ccurb disproportionate third-party influence, including government-backed campaigns,\u201d and limited&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2194,13,678,837,7163,2452,839,269,12,13492,18111,104,2600,3053,14,771],"class_list":{"0":"post-613235","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-gaza","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-israeli-palestinian-conflict","13":"tag-media","14":"tag-middle-east","15":"tag-music","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-slovenia","18":"tag-society-and-culture","19":"tag-spain","20":"tag-switzerland","21":"tag-the-netherlands","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-war"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115665474319851900","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613235","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=613235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}