Eurovision in Vienna opens under boycott threats, voting rules tightened amid Gaza war tensions

Eurovision opened in Vienna under a shadow that went to the heart of its promise of neutral pop spectacle. With protests planned outside the Wiener Stadthalle and broadcasters in Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands and Slovenia already boycotting over Israel’s participation amid the Gaza war, the contest’s 70th edition began with politics sitting beside the stage. Vienna hosted Eurovision for the third time, after 1967 and 2015, with shows scheduled for May 12, 14 and 16 and 35 countries in the field.

Inside the arena, the European Broadcasting Union had already rewritten parts of the competition’s playbook. The maximum number of public votes per person was cut from 20 to 10 after broadcasters raised concerns about disproportionate promotion campaigns and Israel’s unusually strong public vote last year. The EBU said the changes were meant to strengthen trust, transparency and neutrality, and to discourage promotional efforts backed by third parties, including governments or governmental agencies. It also brought professional juries back to the semi-finals and expanded them with younger jurors aged 18 to 25, while adding technical safeguards designed to detect and block coordinated or fraudulent voting.

The pressure for those changes came out of Eurovision 2025 in Basel, where Austria won with Wasted Love and 436 points, while Israel finished second with 357. Israel collected 297 points from the public and only 60 from juries, leaving 83% of its total dependent on the televote. Eurovision director Martin Green said organizers had seen activity last year that could be described as disproportionate marketing and promotional activity, though he stopped short of naming any country.

The dispute sharpened again when Israel’s foreign ministry account on X posted messages last year urging people to vote up to 20 times for Yuval Raphael. This year, the contest’s organizer warned Israeli broadcaster KAN over a separate online video by entrant Noam Bettan that told viewers to vote 10 times for Israel. KAN said it followed all EBU rules and said the disputed material was an independent initiative by the artist’s close personal team, not prohibited financing or an official campaign.

The political split had been building for months. The EBU opened structured talks in July 2025 on Eurovision’s increasingly complex global context, then members backed the revised rules in a secret ballot in December 2025 and said the 2026 contest should go ahead with the added safeguards. After that decision, RTÉ said Ireland would not take part if Israel participated, calling it “unconscionable” given the loss of life in Gaza, while RTVE said Israel’s inclusion was incompatible with its public-service responsibilities. With pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel demonstrations expected in Vienna, including one linked to Nakba Day, the contest’s neutrality was no longer an abstract brand claim but the central issue on the ground.