GENEVA, Aug 13 \u2014 Eurovision Song Contest organisers announced yesterday that they were excluding any country in an armed conflict from hosting the competition and increased the minimum age of competitors.<\/p>\n
While they did not mention any country by name, Israel, which has been at war in Gaza since 2023, came close to winning the competition in both 2025 and 2026, ultimately finishing second on each occasion.<\/p>\n
Under the old rules, the winning country normally hosts the following year\u2019s competition.<\/p>\n
Under the new rules, \u201cthe winning broadcaster will automatically be ineligible to host the contest if an armed conflict, a sensitive geopolitical situation, or any other situation materially affects the security, safety or stability of their state or immediate region\u201d, they said in a statement.<\/p>\n
In a first, five countries \u2014 Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Iceland \u2014 boycotted the 2026 competition in Vienna over Israel\u2019s participation.<\/p>\n
They said they could not take part alongside Israel because of its war in Gaza, triggered by Hamas\u2019s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.<\/p>\n
Martin Green, director of the Eurovision Song Contest, said in a statement that the changes had been guided by feedback from member countries.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cThese changes are about giving everyone involved greater clarity, protecting artists and ensuring the contest continues to provide a safe and welcoming environment, while preserving the spirit and integrity that make the Eurovision Song Contest so special.\u201d<\/p>\n
Minimum age requirement<\/p>\n
The organisers also announced that competitors must be at at least 18, up from 16, on the day of their first rehearsal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis change continues the work already undertaken by the contest to strengthen safeguarding and protect younger artists from the pressures associated with competing at the Eurovision Song Contest,\u201d they added in the statement.<\/p>\n
The youngest person to win the contest was 13-year-old Sandra Kim from Belgium in 1986, according to Eurovision records.<\/p>\n
Eurovision is a co-production of public broadcasters belonging to the European Broadcasting Union. Since the EBU includes members from outside Europe, the contest is not limited to European countries.<\/p>\n
The EBU said it could commission an independent security assessment before deciding whether a winning country is capable of hosting the event safely.<\/p>\n
If a winning country is found unable to host the contest, the EBU will appoint another host nation.<\/p>\n
Under the new rules, that country will organise the concert \u201cin its own right\u201d and \u201cwill not be required to stage the event on behalf of another member\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ukraine hosted Eurovision in 2017 despite the conflict in the country\u2019s east between Ukrainian forces and Moscow-backed separatists.<\/p>\n
But after Ukraine won the contest in 2022, it was unable to host the following year\u2019s edition because of Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion.<\/p>\n
Eurovision 2023 was instead held in Liverpool in Britain on Ukraine\u2019s behalf. \u2014 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GENEVA, Aug 13 \u2014 Eurovision Song Contest organisers announced yesterday that they were excluding any country in an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,20763,32443,14849,279406,279408,111,139,69,437,279407],"class_list":["post-567450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-european-broadcasting-union","tag-eurovision-song-contest","tag-israel-gaza-conflict","tag-martin-green","tag-minimum-age-requirement","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tv","tag-vienna-2026-boycott"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}