Following the General Assembly held today in Geneva, the EBU members were asked to vote (secretly) on whether they support the new suggested changes to the Eurovision Contest rules.
With broad agreement that a further vote wasn’t needed, the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 is confirmed to go ahead, including the new safeguards. Following this, no separate vote on participating countries was needed.
The Slovenian broadcaster RTV SLO expressed dissatisfaction with the results and decided to withdraw from Eurovision 2026.
Attached here is the full statement of the national broadcaster:
Slovenia will not be on the Eurovision song contest next year. The European Broadcasting Association in Geneva has decided that its members will not decide about excluding Israel from the competition. This was the condition for our state to participate
Natalija Gorščak, President of the RTVSLO Management Board. commented:
For the third year in a row, the public has been demanding that we say no to the cooperation of any country that is attacking another country. We must follow European standards for peace and understanding. From the very beginning, Eurovision was a place for joy and happiness, the performers and the audience were united by music, and so it should remain
According to RTV SLO, Slovenia, Spain, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Turkey, Algeria, and
Iceland requested a secret vote regarding Israel’s participation in the Eurovision Song Contest, but it was not held.
In their political statement, the Slovenian national broadcaster kept on representing the Palestinian side. TV RTV Slovenia Director Ksenija Horvat said:
We believe that the EBU could have shown a principled and ethical stance here, and we regret that the association in which we participate was not capable of doing so. For more than a year, we have been warning that we cannot stand on the same stage with a representative of a country that caused the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. We point out that Gaza is the only territory in the world where the work of foreign journalists is not possible and where people are still dying in unbearable humanitarian and security conditions.
RTV SLO won’t broadcast Eurovision 2026.
While criticising the contest’s politics, RTV SLO is one of the leading voices in politicizing the contest.
Slovenia has participated in Eurovision 30 times, with 17 grand final appearances.
The first participation was in 1993.
Over the years, the country’s best results was 7th place in 1995 and 2001
We hope to see Slovenia competing in Eurovision in the future
Eurovision 2026 will be held in Vienna, Austria, on May 12th, 14th, and 16th, 2026.
