The decision was made in a vote held this morning by the Board of Directors of Spanish Radio and Television after the president of the Corporation, José Pablo López, raised it on Monday.
Spain will not participate in Eurovision if Israel ultimately participates in the festival. This decision is the result of a vote held this morning by the Board of Directors of Radiotelevisión Española. The president of the Corporation, José Pablo López, informed the board members of the possibility of not participating in the festival, as announced this Monday through 'Directo al grano', the program hosted by Marta Flich and Gonzalo Miró for the afternoons on La 1.
Spain thus becomes the fifth country to confirm its withdrawal from Eurovision in the case of Israel's participation, following the Netherlands, Slovenia, Iceland, and Ireland. Meanwhile, the director of Israeli public radio, Kan, has refused to withdraw from Eurovision 2026, according to The Times of Israel. There is no reason for Israel not to remain an important part of this cultural event, which cannot become political, argued Kan CEO Golan Yochpaz, at an event presenting the network's new content for this fall.
A tense last edition
This decision, that RTVE will ultimately not participate in Eurovision if Israel participates, comes after a particularly eventful festival fraught with political tensions. During the second semifinal of the competition last year, RTVE commentators Tony Aguilar and Julia Varela mentioned the war in Gaza and the civilian casualties (more than 50,000 according to the United Nations, including more than 15,000 children) during the broadcast while introducing the Israeli candidate, Yuval Raphael. These types of references led to a formal complaint from Israeli public television (KAN) to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which responded by warning RTVE that any further similar references could lead to financial sanctions.
Furthermore, the EBU reminded them of a"commentator's manual" and festival rules that require political neutrality, prohibiting statements that could be interpreted as partisan or political, including death tolls from international conflicts. Faced with this pressure, RTVE responded with a precocious gesture: before the final, they broadcast an on-screen message proclaiming,"In the face of human rights, silence is not an option. Peace and Justice for Palestine."
RTVE shares
On the other hand, RTVE had already begun to raise this issue within the European Broadcasting Union as a matter for debate on the future of the festival. José Pablo López, president of RTVE, sent a letter to the EBU Director General in April requesting that a debate be formally opened within the organization on the participation of Israeli public television, given the concerns expressed by various civil society groups in Spain regarding the situation in Gaza. RTVE believed it was appropriate for the EBU to acknowledge these concerns and facilitate a space for reflection among member broadcasters on whether Israel should be allowed to participate under these circumstances.
The Eurovision televote during the last edition also generated controversy because Israel went from a very low ranking in the jury's vote (fifteenth) to climbing to second place thanks to massive public support, something that many within the public broadcaster didn't agree with. For all these reasons, RTVE requested an independent audit to clarify possible anomalies and even proposed reviewing whether war conflicts or other external campaigns could be influencing the televote. To this end, it requested to know how many votes each country received from Spain (phone calls, text messages, online votes), since what they initially received was only a ranking of the most supported countries, but without exact data on support by country.
Spain would be out of the Big Five
If Spain were to ultimately follow through on its threat of not participating in Eurovision while Israel does, the consequences would be significant, both symbolically and economically. The first is that Spain would no longer be part of the Big Five, that privileged group made up of the five countries that contribute the most money to the festival and, in return, are guaranteed a direct presence in the final. Losing this status means that RTVE would not pay the specific Eurovision fee, that is, the extraordinary contribution that grants the right to compete and view the festival broadcast. In practical terms, it would mean that Spain would not contribute to the festival's budget that year, a development without recent precedent that would upset the financial balance of the contest, since the contributions of the Big Five are one of the pillars of its financing.
However, RTVE would remain a full member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), and would therefore continue to pay the general membership fee. This fee, which is independent of the festival, serves to maintain access to the international network for exchanging content and news, guarantees participation in joint projects with other public television stations, and, above all, allows RTVE to benefit from collective agreements as important as the broadcasting rights for major sporting events (European Championships, Olympic Games, World Cups). In other words, Spain would be financially disengaged from Eurovision, but not from the EBU as a body, thus preserving the strategic ties that allow it to compete on equal terms with other European broadcasters in the field of news and major events.
