Extra pressure
The prospect of more country boycotts next year over Israel’s participation piles extra pressure on the EBU to be more consistent and clear in how it applies its own rules.
During the final week in Vienna, Eurovision officials became increasingly terse when fielding questions about Israel being allowed to participate, and whether it reflected a double standard given that Russia was banned from the contest in 2022 after it invaded Ukraine.
A top EBU official explained the reasoning to POLITICO, that as long as national broadcasters follow EBU rules — like being sufficiently independent from the government — they should be allowed to compete. The official said Israel’s KAN is independent enough, while Russia’s RTR, Channel One and RDO are not.
That wasn’t the reasoning outlined in 2022, when Russia’s public broadcaster was expelled from the EBU and as a consequence banned from Eurovision. At the time, the EBU said that the decision was made “in light of ongoing events in Ukraine,” and the fact that allowing Russia to participate “would bring the competition into disrepute.”
In a press briefing ahead of Saturday’s final, Eurovision chief Martin Green acknowledged that the contest is “going through some challenging times,” and said organizers conducted a number of “listening sessions” with fans this week to hear their feedback. He said they will spend the summer “reviewing everything.”
Green also made a heartfelt appeal for viewers to “enjoy the show,” which is “about expressing yourself, about music, at the end of the day.”
“It’s a terrific, brilliant, wonderful, heartfelt show, with true emotion. It is an unbelievable spectacle, and just for a moment, or maybe four and a half hours, maybe close the curtains to the outside world and dream that something else is possible,” he said.
But for a self-proclaimed “apolitical” song contest that has long been hijacked by politics, the outside world is getting harder to ignore.