As the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 is approaching fast, I'l opening a new general discussion thread to bundle all kinds of general conversations, like your favourite songs, staging suggestions, rankings or predictions. :)

This is especially important as there is an EBU General Assembly coming up next month and Belgian broadcaster VRT has announced that they are trying to force a vote that could have implications for Israels participation:

We are asking for an objective framework like other international organizations have: what are the conditions for a country to participate, and what are not conditions? That is currently lacking.

https://thateurovisionsite.com/2026/05/29/vrt-open-discussion-israel/

Filling out the survey might give VRT more power to actually get the vote to the floor.

The public broadcasters of three European countries, Spain, Ireland and Slovenia, on Monday, announced that they would boycott the 70th Eurovision Song Contest by not airing it.

The song contest has been at the center of controversy with several countries calling on Eurovision's organizers to exclude Israel following the Gaza war.

A new explainer from the European Broadcasting Union has explained the intricacies about how the audience and jury voting work at the Eurovision Song Contest. The Q&A reveals new details about the checks done to ensure that voting is valid from both the public vote and the jury vote across the 35 participating countries and the Rest of the World.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/47844639

This May, millions of people are expected to tune in to the 70th Eurovision Song Contest. For the third consecutive year, they’ll find Israel celebrated onstage despite its ongoing genocide in Gaza, while Russia remains banned for its illegal invasion of Ukraine.

As musicians and cultural workers, many living within the reaches of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), we reject Eurovision being used to whitewash and normalise Israel’s genocide, siege and brutal military occupation against Palestinians.

We stand in solidarity with Palestinian calls for public broadcasters, performers, screening party organisers, crew, and fans to boycott Eurovision until the EBU bans complicit Israeli broadcaster KAN.

We applaud the principled withdrawals of the Spanish, Irish, Icelandic, Slovenian, and Dutch broadcasters, and the many national selection finalists committing to refuse to go to Eurovision. Just as artists stood against oppression in South Africa, we stand together now.

Apartheid Israel’s president Isaac Herzog – named in South Africa’s submission to the International Court of Justice for inciting to genocide – has played a leading role in lobbying broadcasters not to ban Israel from the contest, the world’s most-watched live music event.

The EBU's hypocritical responses to Russia’s and Israel’s crimes have removed any illusion of Eurovision's claimed “neutrality”. In 2022, the EBU said that Russia’s presence would “bring the competition into disrepute”.

Yet more than 30 months of genocide in Gaza – alongside ethnic cleansing and land theft in the besieged West Bank – aren’t considered sufficient to apply the same policy to Israel.

How can any performer or Eurovision fan in good conscience participate at the contest’s next edition in Austria amidst US-Israeli plans for hyper-surveilled concentration camps in 'New Gaza'? There are moments in time when passive silence is not an option.

We refuse to be silent when Israel’s genocidal violence soundtracks and silences Palestinian lives. When children in Israeli prisons endure beatings for humming a tune. When all that’s left of nearly every stage, studio, bookshop and university in Gaza is piles of rubble, under which slaughtered bodies still await recovery and proper burial.

As artists, we recognise our collective agency – and the power of refusal. We refuse to be silent. We refuse to be complicit. We call on others in our industry to join us. And we stand in solidarity with all principled efforts to end complicity in every industry.

No stage for genocide. #BoycottEurovision.

Initial Signatories include Brian Eno, Massive Attack, Sigur Rós, Nadine Shah, Idles, Young Fathers, Kneecap, Erika de Casier, Paul Weller, Mogwai, Smerz, Nemahsis, Macklemore, Roger Waters, Peter Gabriel, Primal Scream, Ólafur Arnalds, Of Monsters And Men, Paloma Faith, Black Country New Road, Salute, David Holmes, Dry Cleaning, Hot Chip, Midland, Olof Dreijer from The Knife, Mechatok, Lido Pimienta and former Eurovision winners Emmelie de Forest and Charlie McGettigan

SIGN THE STATEMENT

GEOBLOCK YOUR MUSIC

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/47842441

Celebrated musicians including Massive Attack, Kneecap, Brian Eno, Sigur Rós, Nadine Shah, and many more have signed an open letter calling for a boycott of the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest in protest of Israel’s participation.

Campaign groups No Music For Genocide and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel are calling for a boycott of this year’s highly divisive Eurovision Song Contest.

More than 1,000 artists, including Massive Attack, Kneecap, Brian Eno, Sigur Rós, Nadine Shah, Mogwai and Hot Chip, have signed an open letter calling for a boycott of Eurovision 2026 in protest of Israel’s participation.

The letter calls upon the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) to ban KAN – the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation – from the upcoming contest.

“For the third consecutive year,” the letter states, Israel will be “celebrated onstage despite its ongoing genocide in Gaza, while Russia remains banned for its illegal invasion of Ukraine.”

“We refuse to be silent when Israel’s genocidal violence soundtracks and silences Palestinian lives,” the letter reads. “When children in Israeli prisons endure beatings for humming a tune. When all that’s left of nearly every stage, studio, bookshop and university in Gaza is piles of rubble, under which slaughtered bodies still await recovery and proper burial.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for No Music For Genocide said: “People of conscience around the globe are fighting complicity in every industry for a free Palestine and a freer world. While many of us in the industry make light of Eurovision or doubt our own power as cultural producers, genocidal Israel’s leaders speak openly about the contest’s geopolitical value.”

Continue reading HERE

Participating countries (so far, more are expected to announce their participation in the coming weeks):

• Bangladesh
• Bhutan
• Cambodia
• Laos
• Malaysia
• Nepal
• Philippines
• South Korea
• Thailand
• Vietnam

https://youtu.be/7Alvjx6W2BU

Congrats Jonas! He nailed the performance today.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/44509345

BRUSSELS, Feb 15 (Bernama-WAFA) -- The European Broadcasting Union announced the cancellation of the European tour linked to the Eurovision Song Contest following continued controversy and objections over Israel’s participation in the 2026 edition, Palestine News and Info Agency (WAFA) reported.

In an official statement, the union said the decision came amid escalating boycotts and pressure related to Israel’s participation against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Gaza.

After five countries announced their withdrawal from the contest, organisers decided not to proceed with the European tour, which had been scheduled to take place after the competition in May.

Ireland’s Charlie McGettigan, who won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1994, said he will return his trophy in protest of Israel’s continued participation in the competition, joining Swiss singer Nemo, last year's champion, in the symbolic move.

McGettigan said he plans to send the trophy to the European Broadcasting Union, which organizes Eurovision, in a video posted on social media. McGettigan won the contest with fellow Irish singer Paul Harrington.

He said Nemo had contacted him online to explain the decision to return the 2024 trophy.

“They came across as sincere and a very intelligent person and stated their case very well, and therefore in support of Nemo, I would like to return my trophy to the EBU as well," said Harrington. "Unfortunately, our win was in 1994 and I can’t lay my hands on whatever trophy we received back then, but if I do find it, I will return my trophy as well."

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/51460656

The member broadcasters of the EBU Held the annual Winter Meeting on 4 December, after the organizing body delayed the meeting while they decided what to do about Israel.

A rules change package was proposed, and many come in direct response to Israel's behavior in the 2025 contest. (Government social media pushing votes, significant ad spend across Europe to support their artist) Those rules changes are:

• Juries are back in the Semi Finals. The last few years have been televote-only. There will be a 50/50 split weight.
• Juries increase from 5 to 7 people per country, and 2 of them must now be 18-25 years old.
• Half as many votes allowed per payment method, from 20 down to 10.
• "discourage disproportionate promotion campaigns…particularly when undertaken or supported by third parties, including governments or governmental agencies.”

Unfortunately, the EBU reportedly met separately with Israeli officials to negotiate the rules package in advance. When the actual voting was announced, the EBU tied the votes on Israeli participation and the rules package together, with the idea that member countries voting Yes on the rules package believed that it was enough to deal with the situation. Only if the rules package was voted down could a separate vote be held on Israeli participation.

Here's a leaked picture from inside the meeting showing the voting terms and results.

Several of the rules changes were desired for years, and so the motion was adopted. No vote was held on participation.

In my opinion this is very shady behavior from the EBU. While I personally think these are good rules change, there's no reason they should have been tied to the Israel vote.

In essence, the EBU has determined that Israel's participation is more important than that of Spain, Ireland, Slovenia, and the Netherlands (as those countries had promised to boycott). An interesting twist of history is that Spain has never missed a Eurovision, and they are boycotting to oppose the inclusion of a country with an authoritarian government, just as Franco's Spainish participation was itself boycotted in 1970.

One argument we have heard in favor of Israeli participation has been that it is important to support independent public broadcasters in member countries where they are under threat, and indeed that is a core function of the EBU. Russia was allowed to participate under that principle until after the full scale invasion of Ukraine.

KAN, the Israel public broadcaster, was fairly independent and so this argument held water, but the last two years have seen significant interference from the government, including the selection of the propaganda song "October Rain". The Netanyahu government has been vocal about their dislike of KAN due to critical reporting.

The EBU choosing to favor KAN is especially short sighted when you consider that a bill to privatize and/or shut down KAN is currently in the Knesset.

The Swiss winner of the 2024 Eurovision song contest has said they will be returning their award after Israel was cleared to participate in next year's event.

“Even though I’m immensely grateful for the community around this contest and everything this experience has taught me both as a person and artist, today I no longer feel this trophy belongs on my shelf," they said, writing on Instagram.

"But Israel's continued participation, during what the UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry has concluded to be a genocide, shows a clear conflict between those ideals and the decisions made by the EBU."

Iceland has joined Spain, Ireland, Slovenia and the Netherlands in saying it will boycott the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest.

All five countries have withdrawn after Israel's participation in the competition was officially confirmed last week.

"The Icelandic National Broadcasting Service (RÚV) has decided not to participate in the Eurovision song contest in Vienna, Austria, next year," a statement said after an RÚV board meeting on Wednesday.

"Participation of Israeli national broadcaster, KAN, in the contest has created disunity among both members of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the general public."

Apologies for this website. Ewww their devs are lazy AF. But this story goes to show why Israel will forever be treated differently to Russia when committing genocide. Countries such as France and the UK and Germany will protect them. And to be blunt... that's where the money is.