{"id":169919,"date":"2025-12-05T17:41:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T17:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/169919\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T17:41:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T17:41:19","slug":"austria-to-go-ahead-with-eurovision-despite-financial-impact-of-boycott-eurovision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/169919\/","title":{"rendered":"Austria to go ahead with Eurovision despite financial impact of boycott | Eurovision"},"content":{"rendered":"

Austria has said it will continue with plans to host next year\u2019s Eurovision<\/a>, in spite of its budget being hit by four countries boycotting the song contest over Israel\u2019s participation and the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n

At a meeting in Geneva, the national broadcasters that make up the European Broadcasting Union gave the all clear for Israel to take part in next year\u2019s event in Vienna, the contest\u2019s 70th anniversary edition.<\/p>\n

In response, broadcasters from Spain, Ireland, Slovenia and the Netherlands<\/a> announced they would boycott the world\u2019s largest live music event by declining to broadcast the semi-finals and finals and not fielding their own entrants.<\/p>\n

Even though Spain is among the \u201cbig five\u201d nations in terms of financial contributions to Eurovision, the Austrian broadcaster ORF said the 2026 event would go ahead in May as planned.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe show will not suffer in any way,\u201d said ORF\u2019s director general, Roland Weissmann, adding that those pulling out still had until mid-December to change their minds.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall, it would of course be a financial burden if several countries didn\u2019t participate, but we had already taken this into account \u2026 and this mainly affects the EBU, which has already factored this into its budget,\u201d Weissmann said. \u201cI don\u2019t see this being a problem in Vienna and even if there is a bit less, we\u2019ll be able to compensate for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Austria, alongside Germany, was among the countries to come out most firmly in favour of Israeli participation in the run-up to Thursday\u2019s general assembly.<\/p>\n

Germany\u2019s foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, said he welcomed the decision, saying the Israel \u201ctraditionally\u201d belonged in the song contest.<\/p>\n

The Christian Democrat politician urged the boycotting nations to rethink their stance, saying: \u201cCulture should always have something that connects people \u2026 this forum should not be used as a place for dealing with political differences.\u201d<\/p>\n

No vote on Israel\u2019s participation was held on Thursday at the EBU general assembly. Broadcasters voted only to introduce new rules designed to stop governments and third parties from disproportionately promoting songs to influence voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cA large majority of members agreed that there was no need for a further vote on participation and that the Eurovision song contest 2026 should proceed as planned, with the additional safeguards in place,\u201d the EBU said in a statement.<\/p>\n

This \u201clarge majority\u201d amounted to 65% of delegates voting in favour of the changes to the song contest and no further discussion on participation of Israel, while 23% voted against and 10% abstained.<\/p>\n

Some countries had raised concerns over undue promotion methods after Israel topped the public vote at the contest in May, finishing second overall when the jury votes were taken into consideration. In Ireland<\/a>, the broadcaster RT\u00c9 has called for an audit of the public vote.<\/p>\n

RT\u00c9 said on Thursday it would be \u201cunconscionable\u201d to participate in the 2026 contest if Israel also took part \u201cgiven the appalling loss of lives and the humanitarian crisis\u201d in Gaza.<\/p>\n

The Slovenian broadcaster RTV SLO said it would be boycotting the contest \u201con behalf of the 20,000 children who died in Gaza\u201d.<\/p>\n

Voting result on voting reform to Eurovision song contest at EBU general assembly 4 December 2025. Photograph: Lisa O\u2019Carroll<\/p>\n

Of the boycotting countries, the Netherlands participated in the song contest\u2019s inaugural edition in 1956. Ireland shares with Sweden the record for most Eurovision wins, with seven.<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s prime minister, Miche\u00e1l Martin, said on Friday he \u201cfully understands\u201d his country\u2019s withdrawal from the song contest, describing it as an \u201cact of solidarity\u201d.<\/p>\n

So far, no further countries have joined in the boycott. Sweden\u2019s national broadcaster SVT confirmed on Friday it would take part in the 2026 contest, after speculation that it might pull out over Israel\u2019s confirmed participation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new rules mean, among other things, that governments refrain from campaigns, fewer votes per participant and that professional jury panels are once again introduced in the semi-finals\u201d, SVT said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTechnical security is also being strengthened to avoid vote fraud. This \u2013 combined with the result of the vote \u2013 is in line with the conditions that SVT has set for participating in Eurovision: a broad European support and a competition that is as apolitical as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nordic countries including Finland, Norway, Denmark and Iceland expressed support for the EBU\u2019s public voting changes on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The Icelandic broadcaster RUV, which had previously reserved the right not to participate, said it would consider its position at a board meeting on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Austria has said it will continue with plans to host next year\u2019s Eurovision, in spite of its budget…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-169919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}