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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 , at which point Israel would be ineligible to participate in the EBU and by extension the ESC.
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Poland’s culture minister calls for Eurovision boycott if Israel participates
(notesfrompoland.com)
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