Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has called for Israel to be banned from Eurovision “like they did with Russia”. However, Spanish broadcaster RTVE said it would ask the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) to start a discussion on televoting to assess whether this form of voting is the most appropriate and whether it is “affected by military conflicts”.
The Spanish broadcaster says several countries will also make a similar request to the EMU. RTVE believes that the televoting is "influenced by current armed conflicts" and that the ceremony could lose its cultural essence.
They want to know exactly how viewers in Spain voted — how many votes each country received. Currently, you can only get the total number of votes and types of voting (calls, SMS, online) after a separate request to the European Broadcasting Union.
During the first semi-final, Spain voted 774 times by phone, 2 377 times via SMS and 11 310 times online. In the final, the numbers increased significantly — there were 7 283 calls, 23 840 SMS and 111 565 online votes. As a result, the most points from Spain were received by Israel — 12, followed by Ukraine — 10, Poland — 8, Estonia — 7, Finland — 6, Sweden — 5, Austria — 4, Albania — 3, Norway — 2, France — 1.
This statement by the Spanish broadcaster comes against the backdrop of Ukraine and Israel winning the televoting semi-final, where the jury does not give the score.
In the grand final, Israel received the most points from the audience, 297. Thirteen countries, including Belgium and Spain, gave it 12 points each. Together with 60 points from the jury, this brought the country second place with a total score of 357 points.
Belgian broadcaster VRT also wants the European Broadcasting Union to review the Eurovision voting system, or they could be kicked out of the contest.
A VRT spokeswoman said they had no evidence that the vote count was wrong, but wanted full transparency.
VRT believes that the competition is becoming less and less true to its values and no longer brings people together as it used to. If the organizers do not respond to their comments, VRT may refuse to participate in future competitions.
Even before the start of Eurovision 2025, an Irish broadcaster called for a debate on whether Israel should participate in Eurovision. The British National Union of Journalists joined this initiative. Separately, several former contestants signed an open letter demanding that Israel be excluded from the contest, which also appealed for the exclusion of Russia and emphasized the inadmissibility of the European Broadcasting Unionʼs double standards.
- Israel was represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 by singer Yuval Raphael, who survived the Hamas terrorist attack on the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023.
- The question of Israelʼs participation in the song contest is not the first time it has been raised. For example, in 2024, in Sweden, where Eurovision 2024 was held, thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated against Israelʼs participation.
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