{"id":963619,"date":"2026-05-16T10:29:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T10:29:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/963619\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T10:29:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T10:29:16","slug":"were-not-the-united-nations-top-official-defends-eurovision-ahead-of-tense-final-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/963619\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We\u2019re not the United Nations\u2019: top official defends Eurovision ahead of tense final \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

The countries sitting out this year\u2019s 70th anniversary contest (Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands,\u00a0Slovenia and Iceland)\u00a0say\u00a0their decision is due to Israel\u2019s war in Gaza<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 which was sparked by a violent attack on Israel by Hamas militants\u00a0\u2014 and the resulting humanitarian crisis it has triggered.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

De Tender said the EBU is \u201cengaging with\u201d and \u201clistening to\u201d those countries to try to get them \u201cback\u00a0on board\u00a0next year.\u201d But he said in the end the public broadcasters in those countries need to listen to their audiences and make their own decisions about participation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those\u00a0calling\u00a0for Israel\u2019s exclusion from the song contest point to the fact that Russia was banned from the contest in 2022<\/a>, just after it invaded Ukraine. <\/p>\n

In a\u00a0statement on\u00a0X<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Friday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez said there \u201ccannot be double standards\u201d when it comes to Russia and Israel\u2019s participation in the song contest.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year we will not be at Eurovision, but we will do so with the conviction of being on the right side of history. For consistency, responsibility, and humanity,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the face of illegal war\u00a0and also\u00a0genocide, silence is not an option,\u201d he added. \u00a0<\/p>\n

De Tender told POLITICO in Friday\u2019s interview that the difference between Russia and Israel is that Russia\u2019s public broadcaster is not considered to be independent from the government,\u00a0which is why\u00a0its EBU membership was\u00a0suspended,\u00a0and it cannot compete in Eurovision.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The countries sitting out this year\u2019s 70th anniversary contest (Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands,\u00a0Slovenia and Iceland)\u00a0say\u00a0their decision is due…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":963620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3937],"tags":[1442,6178,6659,2766,27644,77,2348,7059,102593,678,679,837,2452,269,5338,48,332,1199,13492,104,47982,3053,382,16,657,15,771],"class_list":{"0":"post-963619","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-competition","9":"tag-conflict","10":"tag-crisis","11":"tag-culture","12":"tag-dutch-politics","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-history","15":"tag-iceland","16":"tag-icelandic-politics","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-irish-politics","19":"tag-israel","20":"tag-media","21":"tag-music","22":"tag-pedro-sanchez","23":"tag-rights","24":"tag-russia","25":"tag-services","26":"tag-slovenia","27":"tag-spain","28":"tag-spanish-politics","29":"tag-the-netherlands","30":"tag-tv","31":"tag-uk","32":"tag-ukraine","33":"tag-united-kingdom","34":"tag-war"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116583790882612806","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963619","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=963619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/963620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=963619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=963619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=963619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}