The Eurovision Song Contest faces a "watershed moment" on Thursday when members of the body that organises the contest may vote on whether Israel can compete in 2026, as some nations threaten to withdraw if Israel is not excluded due to the Gaza war. FRANCE 24's Sharon Gaffney speaks with Dean Vuletic, historian of the Eurovision Song Contest and author of "Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest".
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00:04The world's most watched song contest is shaping up for a major test this Thursday
00:09when members meet to discuss the participation of Israel.
00:12The competition, which claims to be non-political,
00:15has been rocked by protests since the start of the war in Gaza.
00:19After several countries threatened to boycott next year's contest,
00:23organizers announced new rules last month aimed at discouraging governments
00:28from disproportionately promoting songs to influence voters, as Vedika Behel reports.
00:36It's a major test for the world's most beloved international song competition.
00:41Members of the European Broadcasting Union, the body that organized Eurovision,
00:45will meet Thursday to decide whether Israel can compete in 2026.
00:50Public broadcasters from Spain, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Ireland
00:54have threatened to withdraw if Israel participates,
00:57citing the Palestinian death toll in Gaza due to Israel's offensive.
01:01A boycott could be a blow for sponsorship and viewership, particularly by Spain,
01:06which is one of the big five contributing countries.
01:09We hold the same position we had months ago,
01:13when we said Israel's participation in the Eurovision festival was untenable for two main reasons.
01:18Firstly, because of the genocide it has perpetrated in Gaza,
01:22Eurovision is of course a contest, but human rights are not a contest.
01:27Eurovision has always aimed to remain apolitical,
01:31but Israel's participation has heavily influenced the last few additions.
01:35This year critics accused Israel of unfairly boosting support for its entrant Yuval Raphael,
01:41a survivor of the October 7th attacks, pushing her to a second place finish
01:45despite little backing from professional juries.
01:48The controversy pushed EBU to change its voting rules, aimed at pacifying angry member states.
01:54Members will discuss Thursday whether these new rules are adequate,
01:58or else there will be a vote on participation.
02:00It will be a real kind of watershed moment, I think, in the history of Eurovision.
02:04It will be the first time really we've got a serious political issue
02:07that's really affected many participating countries.
02:09I think it probably has to go to a vote,
02:11because you've got a lot of countries that threaten to withdraw if Israel take part.
02:14You've also got other countries that are rumoured to be withdrawing if Israel are forced out.
02:19So I think it has to be somehow dealt with by consensus.
02:22Should Israel be voted out, it wouldn't be the first country to be barred.
02:26Russia has been excluded from Eurovision since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine,
02:31and Belarus since 2021.
02:34Eurovision 2026 is scheduled to take place next May in Austria.
02:39Well, to discuss all of this, we're joined by Dean Vuletik,
02:42historian of the Eurovision Song Contest and author of Post-War Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest.
02:49Dean, thanks so much for being with us.
02:51As we heard there in that report,
02:53some people are describing this as a watershed moment for the Eurovision.
02:58Would you agree?
03:00Absolutely. I've researched the history of Eurovision.
03:03I've written a book about it.
03:04And I can say that this is one of the most serious crises that Eurovision has ever faced.
03:10It's the first time where we really see such deep divisions in the European Broadcasting Union over a political issue.
03:19And describe to us with a little bit more detail, please, what these new rules are that were voted in last month.
03:25Well, the new rules would bring back the expert juries to vote in the semifinals.
03:33Now, in 2023, the European Broadcasting Union decided that it was just enough to have the public vote in the semifinals and to maintain the 50 percent jury voting, 50 percent public televoting in the grand finals.
03:49But now there's a return to having the 50-50 rule in the semifinals as well.
03:56There will also be limits placed on the number of votes that the televoters can make.
04:02Up until now, it has been 20.
04:04In 2020, this will be reduced to 10.
04:07And there will also be rules brought in to limit the potential for the political manipulation of the voting, especially through the organisation of promotional campaigns by political organisations, including governments.
04:25And do you think the broadcasters more or less are going to be happy with these new rules or do you think tomorrow's meeting is going to proceed to that vote over the participation of Israel?
04:37It's difficult to say.
04:40It's difficult to say.
04:41I think that it's unlikely that there would be a vote to exclude Israel from Eurovision.
04:50I think that there is simply not enough broadcasters which would support this.
04:55And we're more likely to see other countries boycotting the countries that were previously mentioned, Spain, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Ireland and probably Iceland.
05:07We're more likely to see them boycotting next year than we are to see Israel excluded.
05:13And the fact that the EBU brought in these changes, does that suggest to you that, in fact, that is likely the way things are going to go, that we won't actually proceed to that vote because of the changes that are going to be implemented?
05:26Well, we have to wait and see what the discussion actually is.
05:33I think the changes are unlikely to be rejected, but I think they're unlikely to satisfy a lot of the concerns of the key players behind the boycott, the four countries that I mentioned.
05:48And Spain is traditionally one of the big players when it comes to the Eurovision.
05:53If they were to boycott this event, the other nations would have smaller TV audiences.
05:58But how much of a blow would that be if Spain were to pull out and were to decide not to show the contest on TV next year?
06:07It would be a huge blow.
06:08This is one of the biggest national markets for Eurovision.
06:11Remember also that the Spanish language popular music market is one of the biggest in the world.
06:17So this is also an opportunity for Eurovision to attract viewers across the world, including in Spanish speaking Latin America.
06:27So losing Spain would certainly be a big blow for the contest.
06:31Losing Ireland as well, which holds the record number of wins in Eurovision.
06:36And losing a country like Iceland would also be a big blow, considering Iceland has the highest proportion of its viewing of a national viewing audience watching Eurovision.
06:49So losing any of these countries is really going to cause damage to the contest.
06:54But Spain, especially because it is the biggest out of all of them.
06:58And would it cause more damage, for example, if that were to be the case than if Israel was actually banned from the competition and the likes of Germany, Austria decide then to boycott the event?
07:09Is there a worst case scenario here for the EBU?
07:12Losing any of the participants in Eurovision, I think, is going to cause some sort of damage, as I just said.
07:24So I think that if excluding Israel also means that countries will boycott Eurovision in support of Israel, of course, that is also going to be a big shock for the contest, especially if it is a big player like Germany.
07:40Austria supports Israel's participation in the contest.
07:44Austria is hosting next year.
07:46It's the 70th anniversary.
07:48Austria wants as many countries to come as possible.
07:51But it is unlikely to boycott itself, considering that it is the host.
07:55I should point out, though, that it's rather ironic because Austria was the first country that ever boycotted Eurovision for political reasons.
08:03And that was in 1969 when it refused to attend Eurovision in Madrid, when it was staged by the government of dictator Francisco Franco.
08:13And as we know and as we heard in that report, Eurovision likes to, you know, portray itself as being apolitical.
08:20So why then was Russia banned in 2022?
08:24And what essentially is the difference between Israel and Russia when it comes to whether or not countries should boycott the event or whether or not they should be banned?
08:34Yes, the difference when it came to Russia was that there was a political consensus around excluding Russia from Eurovision, a political consensus that was achieved in the context of a broader consensus among European governments to impose sanctions against Russia.
08:52Now, there weren't any sanctions imposed against Israel.
08:56So the European Broadcasting Union couldn't use this reason to exclude Israel from the contest.
09:04So you really need a broader political consensus that the European Broadcasting Union and its members can work in in order to exclude a member.
09:14The sanctions against Israel weren't there.
09:17And do you think that no matter how the meeting goes tomorrow, are we still likely to see a repeat of the protests that we've seen surrounding the event itself over the past couple of years?
09:29I think we are very likely to see those, you know, considering that there has been so much talk of boycott in recent months.
09:38I think we're likely to see the protests continue next year in Vienna.
09:44But I should point out that these protests aren't a recent thing.
09:48They they didn't emerge just in reaction to the war in Gaza.
09:53They actually started in 2019 when there was a global campaign by the boycott, divest and sanctions movement, a pro-Palestinian movement for countries to boycott Eurovision when it was staged in Tel Aviv in 2019.
10:08So these protests have been going on for quite some years now.
10:12And finally, Dean, what exactly is it about the Eurovision that seems to prompt such passion in certain countries?
10:18In any case, isn't it just simply at the end of the day a song contest?
10:21Well, it's a song contest in which you see countries competing against each other.
10:28Now, it's national public service broadcasters that are members of the European Broadcasting Union, which submit the entries.
10:35But these entries compete under the names of countries.
10:39And whenever you have countries competing against each other, things are bound to get political.
10:44Now, this is such a huge event around 160 million viewers watching every year.
10:50So it's also a big platform to send messages about a country.
10:55They can be touristic messages.
10:57They can be messages about a country's culture, about its social diversity, but they can also be political messages.
11:05Dean, thanks so much for being with us this evening.
11:07That's Dean Vulitek, Eurovision Song Contest historian and expert.
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