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Eurovision boycotts 'dumb', 2026 host Austria says

AFP
AFP - news@thelocal.at
Eurovision boycotts 'dumb', 2026 host Austria says
An Israeli flag hangs next to a Eurovision flag during a screening of the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest finals at a community center in Tel Aviv, Israel. Photo: Maya Levin/AFP.

A senior Austrian official has denounced cultural boycotts as "dumb and pointless" after several countries said they will shun next year's Eurovision song contest in Vienna if Israel participates.

Spain said this week it would boycott the world's largest live televised music event if Israel took part, and Ireland, Slovenia, Iceland and the Netherlands have made similar threats.

Austrian singer JJ won the competition's 2025 edition in May in Switzerland, securing Vienna the right to host next year's show.

"Cultural boycotts are dumb and pointless, they don't get us anywhere," Sepp Schellhorn, a senior foreign ministry official, told Austria's Kurier daily in an interview published Thursday.

The foreign ministry confirmed his comments on Friday.

Schellhorn said that he and the foreign minister would send a letter to European counterparts to discourage any such moves.

"First and foremost, the song contest is a meeting or competition of musicians and artists. I consider it highly problematic to mix their role with the politics of a country," Schellhorn said.

Spanish public broadcaster RTVE said Tuesday that Spain would boycott next year's Eurovision Song Contest if Israel takes part.

It is the first of the so-called "Big Five" nations that provide the most funding for the event to do so.

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the organiser of Eurovision, is set to decide whether Israel will take part in the 2026 edition at its general assembly in December.

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This year's edition in Basel drew in 166 million viewers across 37 countries.

Pro-Palestinian activists protested in Malmo, Sweden in 2024 and in Basel in May over Israel's participation amid its devastating offensive in Gaza.

The war was sparked by Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.

Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 65,174 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the territory's health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.

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