<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>RTVE has announced Spain's withdrawal from the Eurovision Song Contest following the votes held this Thursday at the 95th EBU General Assembly in Geneva, where Israel's participation in the European music competition was confirmed, the broadcaster said in a statement.</strong></h4> The RTVE Board of Directors agreed last September that Spain would withdraw from Eurovision if Israel participated. This withdrawal also means that RTVE will not broadcast the Eurovision 2026 final, to be held in Vienna, Austria, on May 16, nor the preliminary semi-finals, which will take place on May 12 and 14. RTVE, along with seven other countries, had requested a secret ballot at the Assembly, but the EBU presidency denied RTVE's request for a specific vote on Israel's participation. “This decision increases RTVE’s distrust in the festival’s organization and confirms the political pressure surrounding it,” the statement continued. In his address to the General Assembly prior to the voting, RTVE Secretary General Alfonso Morales explained that the Corporation “recognizes and values” the measures adopted by the EBU and the Reference Group to defend the core principles and values of the Eurovision Song Contest. “However, we consider these measures insufficient,” he warned. “The situation in Gaza, despite the ceasefire and the approval of the peace process, and Israel’s use of the contest for political purposes, make it increasingly difficult to maintain Eurovision as a neutral cultural event,” he added. The head of the Corporation also expressed his concern about the manipulation of the vote in recent editions and the lack of sanctions in this regard. “We should not accept double standards. Neutrality and transparency are a common goal to guarantee a truthful result that respects the audience and the public,” he stated. For this reason, RTVE had requested a secret ballot for all votes scheduled today at the General Assembly, both those formally announced and those not, related to the Eurovision Song Contest. It had also requested a vote on the possible temporary suspension of the participation of the Israeli television network KAN for a minimum of one year, with the option of a review after this period, and stated that, should this not be approved, RTVE would not be able to participate in this year's contest. The RTVE Board of Directors, at the proposal of its president, José Pablo López, agreed last September that Spain would not participate in the next Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna and that the network would not broadcast the contest if Israel continued to participate, in response to the massacre in Gaza. Spain thus joined the position of Ireland, Slovenia, Iceland, and the Netherlands. As reported by RTVE on its website, the agreement passed with an absolute majority of the Corporation's board of directors, where the country's main political parties are represented, with ten votes in favor, four against (the directors nominated by the People's Party), and one abstention from the Junts council member. In this way, Spain became the first of the "Big Five" (also comprised of the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany) to make this decision. These countries are so named because they contribute the most to the Eurovision Song Contest and are the five that always have a direct entry to the final. Furthermore, Spain was, until now, along with the United Kingdom and Sweden, one of the three countries that had never missed the Eurovision Song Contest. In the last edition of Eurovision, held in May 2025, Israel was represented with the song "New Day Will Rise," written by Keren Peles and performed by Yuval Raphael, a survivor of the Hamas terrorist attacks. The entry received the highest score from viewers, 297 points. A total of thirteen countries awarded it twelve points, including Belgium and Spain. This, combined with the jury's vote of 60, gave it second place with 357 points. Around the same time, the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, warned that, just as Russia could not participate in Eurovision because of the invasion of Ukraine, Israel "should not do so either" because of the offensive in the Gaza Strip.
