RTVE Reaffirms Its Stance: “Eurovision Is a Contest, but Human Rights Are Not”
At today’s session of the Comisión Mixta de Control Parlamentario de la Corporación RTVE y sus Sociedades (the Joint Parliamentary Committee for the Oversight of RTVE), the broadcaster’s director José Pablo López reaffirmed Spain’s firm position: Spain will not participate in Eurovision 2026 if Israel is allowed to remain in the competition.
“RTVE’s position has not changed,” López stressed, noting that the broadcaster maintains the same view it expressed months earlier. “Israel’s presence is unacceptable — firstly, because of genocide. Eurovision is a contest, but human rights are not.”
According to López, the controversy goes beyond the humanitarian dimension. He accused Israel of repeatedly breaching contest rules:
“I also want to raise the issue of systematic violations of the contest rules by Israel. They constantly use the contest for political purposes, without receiving any sanctions. Any other country doing what Israel does would have been suspended.”
López also revealed that the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) had recently sent RTVE a letter regarding changes to the voting system — a response, he says, to Spain’s continued pressure on the organization.
“Today the EBU sent us a letter, which I will publish later, thanking RTVE for the pressure that led to changes in the voting system. But these measures are insufficient. They do not guarantee that voting manipulations will not happen again.”
He referred to a separate letter sent earlier this week by Executive Producer Martin Green, who argued that Eurovision is a cultural event where artists do not represent their governments. López challenged this logic directly:
“If artists do not represent their governments, then does he propose the return of Belarus and Russia to Eurovision? We know they would use the contest in a similar way, politicizing it.”
For RTVE, the issue is not solved by procedural reforms. The broadcaster insists that the EBU must also address Israel’s actions directly:
“The EBU knows that these measures are improvements but insufficient, and, more importantly, they do not provide sanctions for Israel. We need additional measures. What we demanded a few months ago remains the same as what we demand now.”
López confirmed that RTVE will raise the issue again at the upcoming EBU General Assembly, keeping Spain at the forefront of the debate on ethics, politics, and accountability within the Eurovision framework.
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