Boycotters Spain, Ireland, Slovenia will not show Eurovision

Sarah Engels from Germany holds the flag on the Turquoise Carpet during the official start of the Eurovision Song Contest week at the town hall in Vienna, Austria, Sunday, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

VIENNA - The public broadcasters for Spain, Ireland and Slovenia said Monday they will not show the 70th anniversary Eurovision Song Contest this week, as they boycott the TV extravaganza over Israel’s participation.

The three countries, along with the Netherlands and Iceland, pulled out of this year’s event in Vienna, which kicks off on Tuesday and culminates in Saturday’s grand final.

Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip prompted the five countries to withdraw from the world’s biggest live televised music event -- with Eurovision director Martin Green vowing to do “anything in our power to find a pathway back” for them.

Suspicions were also raised that the public televoting system was being manipulated to boost Israel at Eurovision 2025 in Basel, Switzerland. Furthermore, some broadcasters voiced concerns about media freedom, with Israel preventing their journalists from accessing Gaza.

“Instead of the Eurovision circus, the national television programme will be coloured by the thematic programme series ‘Voices of Palestine’,” Slovenian broadcaster RTV said.

Ireland are joint-record seven-time Eurovision winners, but on Saturday, RTE will be showing a Eurovision-themed episode of the popular 1990s Irish-based sitcom “Father Ted” instead.

Spain’s RTVE will run its own musical special, “The House of Music”.

Public service broadcasters in the Netherlands and Iceland will screen the competition, despite neither taking part.

‘We hope they come back’

Only 35 countries will take part in Eurovision this year -- the fewest since entry was expanded in 2004 -- following the five withdrawals.

As to whether those countries could return, Eurovision chief Green said: “We’ve got five members of our family missing this year. We miss them and we love them and we hope they come back.

“We’ll remain in conversations. We’re very clear we’ll do anything in our power to find a pathway back. Ultimately it’s up to them and I totally respect that,” he told a press conference at the Wiener Stadthalle venue.

He also fielded questions about the voting system’s vulnerability to manipulation.

On Saturday, Green said Israel’s participating broadcaster KAN was warned to stop putting out videos urging viewers “to vote 10 times for Israel”, saying such actions were not in line with the rules and spirit of the competition.

Noting that this year, professional juries were returning to the semi-finals as a counterbalance to the public vote, “we have one of the most safest, secure and fair voting systems,” he said Monday.

Amnesty decries ‘cowardice’

First held in 1956, Eurovision is run by the European Broadcasting Union, the world’s biggest alliance of public-service media.

Amnesty International said the EBU’s failure to suspend Israel from Eurovision was “an act of cowardice”.

Israel’s participation “offers the country a platform to try to deflect attention from and normalise its ongoing genocide in the occupied Gaza Strip”, Amnesty’s secretary general Agnes Callamard said in a statement.

“Songs and sequins must not be allowed to drown out or distract from Israel’s atrocities or Palestinian suffering.”

A UN-backed probe in September determined that “genocide is occurring in Gaza” -- a charge that Israel vehemently denies.

Amichai Chikli, Israel’s diaspora affairs minister, said a “sharp and co-ordinated surge in antisemitic and anti-Israel discourse surrounding Eurovision 2026” had been detected.

“This online incitement attempts, among other things, to brand the Eurovision as ‘Genovision’ -- an event allegedly concealing a fabricated Israeli ‘genocide’,” he said in a statement.

“This situation is a direct continuation and result of the conduct of European governments and public bodies, which choose, in a hypocritical and weak manner, to boycott the competition.”

By Robin Millard.