Stefan Eiriksson, director-general of broadcasting at RUV said: \u201cThere is no peace or joy connected to this contest as things stand now.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn that basis, first and foremost, we are stepping back while the situation is as it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wednesday is the final day for members to confirm their participation for the 2026 contest with the full list of participating broadcasters to be published early next week.<\/p>\n
Martin Green, director of the Eurovision Song Contest said: \u201cWe respect the decision of all broadcasters who have chosen not to participate in next year\u2019s Eurovision Song Contest and hope to welcome them back soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russia was banned from Eurovision after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 but Israel has continued to compete for the past couple of years despite disputes.<\/p>\n
RT\u00c9 remains deeply concerned by the targeted killing of journalists in Gaza during the conflict and the continued denial of access to international journalists to the territory <\/p>\n
In September, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland and Slovenia threatened to withdraw unless Israel was excluded over the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n
The boycott began earlier this month after members attended a European Broadcasting Union (EBU) general assembly in Geneva to vote on changes which included new rules to deter countries organising campaigns for their acts, following concerns around the number of public votes Israel received in 2025.<\/p>\n
According to the BBC, which attended the summit, agreeing to the rule changes meant agreeing not to proceed with a vote on whether Israel could compete, with Swedish broadcaster SVT claiming that the vote was not specific to the participation of Israeli broadcaster KAN.\n <\/p>\n
An SVT statement read: \u201cAll Nordic public service companies, NRK in Norway, YLE in Finland, DR in Denmark and RUV in Iceland voted yes to the proposals, which were supported by a majority of EBU members.\u201d<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2.79727073.jpg\" "\\"Eurovision")
JJ won the 2025 Eurovision competition for Austria (Shivansh Gupta\/PA)<\/p>\n
Israeli singer Yuval Raphael received the largest number of votes from the public last May, ultimately finishing as runner-up after the jury votes were taken into account.<\/p>\n
After the 2025 competition, RT\u00c9 requested a breakdown in voting numbers from the EBU while Spain\u2019s public broadcaster, Radio Television Espanola (RTVE), called for a \u201ccomplete review\u201d of the voting system to avoid \u201cexternal interference\u201d.<\/p>\n
RT\u00c9 said it will not broadcast or take part in the song contest, describing its participation as \u201cunconscionable given the appalling loss of lives in Gaza\u201d.<\/p>\n
The RT\u00c9 statement said:\u00a0\u201cRT\u00c9 remains deeply concerned by the targeted killing of journalists in Gaza during the conflict and the continued denial of access to international journalists to the territory.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 2026 contest will be held in Vienna in May after a narrow victory by Austria\u2019s JJ, with Wasted Love beating Israeli singer Raphael, who was named runner-up after receiving the largest number of votes from the public.<\/p>\n
Dutch broadcaster Avrotros also announced that it would not broadcast the competition, saying it would be \u201cincompatible with the public values that are essential to us\u201d.<\/p>\n
Taco Zimmerman, chief executive, said: \u201cUniversal values like humanity and a free press have been seriously violated and are non-negotiable for us\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cWe choose the core values of Avrotros and, as a public broadcaster, have the responsibility to remain true to these values, even when that is complicated or vulnerable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slovenian broadcaster RTV said it was pulling out of the competition \u201con behalf of the 20,000 children who died in Gaza\u201d.<\/p>\n
The EBU confirmed that participating broadcasters will not have to pay more to take part in the 2026 song contest as a result of the withdrawals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iceland\u2019s national broadcaster RUV has confirmed it will not participate in the Eurovision Song Contest 2026. It is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[148751,2000,299,19345,59249,194066,138681,87203,31952,104,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-624738","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-irish-examiner-instagram","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-eurovision","12":"tag-israel-palestine","13":"tag-place-europe","14":"tag-place-republic-of-ireland","15":"tag-place-uk","16":"tag-rte","17":"tag-spain","18":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115696746929058578","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624738","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=624738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}