Iceland is the fifth country to withdraw from the Eurovision Song Contest 2026, joining Spain, Ireland, Slovenia and The Netherlands. The decision follows a meeting of the Board of Directors of Icelandic broadcaster RÚV on the afternoon of December 10 — the deadline set by the EBU to avoid penalties for late withdrawal. You can read the full press release below.
Iceland withdraws from Eurovision 2026 (STATEMENT FROM RÚV)
The Icelandic National Broadcasting Service (RÚV) has decided not to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, Austria, next year.
Participation of the Israeli national broadcaster, KAN, in the contest has created disunity among both members of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the general public. KAN’s participation was discussed during EBU’s meetings earlier this year, in London last summer and Geneva last week. At the Geneva meeting, a vast majority of EBU members agreed that various adjustments to rules and production of the contest were sufficient and no further voting needed on KAN’s participation in the contest.
At the meeting, RÚV emphasized that although the adjustments addressed many of the concerns RÚV had raised at various stages of the EBU cooperation in recent years, RÚV believes that there are still doubts whether the agreed adjustments would be fully satisfactory. RÚV has repeadly raised concerns that various Icelandic stakeholders, such as artist associations and the general public, were opposed to participation in the contest. Furthermore, RÚV had requested the EBU to exclude KAN from the contest in accordance to precedents. It is a complex matter which has already damaged the contest’s reputation and EBU, emphasizing the necessity of a solution for all concerned parties.
According to public discourse in Iceland and the response to EBU’s decision last week, RÚV’s participation will neither be a source of joy nor peace. Therefore, RÚV has come to the conclusion to inform EBU today that RÚV will not participate in the Eurovision contest next year.
Söngvakeppni – Iceland’s pre-selection for Eurovision – and Eurovision has always aimed to unite the nation. However, it is clear that objective will not be achieved this year and this decision is based on that fact.
At this time, no decision has been made regarding Söngvakeppni Sjónvarpsins for next year. Currently, available options are being assessed and decision announced soon.
Do you think more countries will withdraw from the contest? Do you think that Iceland should still stage a national contest to celebrate its best song of the year? Let us know in the comments down below.
I’ve just attended the European Cross Country Championships in Portugal. It featured 36 countries including teams from Israel, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain. I’m certain it was broadcast in Spain at least, since that country was hugely successful. There was not one moment of protest or disunity. Can someone explain why things are so different at the Eurovision Song Contest?
oh well bye
We’ve come a long way since Hatari waved the flags in 2019. <3
Actions are speaking louder. Nemo just returned the 2024 trophy in protest.
It was broken anyway :?-?)
I love Iceland! Thank you amazing people.
Israel or not. I have already been boycotting ESC since introduction of pre-recorded vocals.
Without a doubt the quality of the songs and ‘singing’ has plummeted. The pre-recorded vocals should have been retired after 2021. But they decided to keep them and we have been inundated by people who are talented dancers but who can’t really sing – bringing songs that cater to their dancing and lack of singing ability.
Many are saying that Russia was kicked out immediately after the invasion Ukraine, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Russia started invading and occupying Crimea in 2014 (I repeat: 2014). After that, the EBU continued to give them a platform to whitewash their regime for 8 years (with “kumbaya world peace” songs like Shine or A Million Voices) and they consistently overperformed in the televote. Even after the full-on invasion in 2022, the EBU’s immediate reaction was to publish a statement saying that ESC was apolitical and Russia was still welcome (they were eventually kicked out just because… Read more »
It was a mistake to kick out Russia, now we are feeling the consequences.
No at all. Russia deserved to be kicked out and all those who write the contrary are paid russian trolls.
Wasn’t Yugoslavia thrown out of Eurovision for political reasons in 1992?
You forgot to mention that Russia opted not to be a member of the EBU, so they were not allowed to enter esc thereafter. Facts.
bye
Don’t use Eurovisionw**ld, they’re paid by Israel to block certain countries from rating ESC entries!
Time to drop “United by Music” slogan, I think.
Just because some others are united by hate
If Israel are wise they’ll find a musician among those who protested against their government and enter a song with the most “Actually we should all look after each other and no one group gets a special pass” message ever and pray to quietly finish on the upper right-hand side of the board. Hubris does funny things to people though. So expect ‘Hurricane’ Pt.2 and, given the way that ESC voting has become a political protest, they’ll probably win and the 70th ESC will be the last. If they try to host under Netanyahu the only country willing to participate… Read more »
Cyprus also stands with our friend Israel.
We had the invador of our country Turkey welcomed by all of you. Double standard hypocricy by European countries.
You pushed Britain out. Don’t cry when the people they were protecting you from enter the space you created.
Iceland and the other “Pathetic 4” did not bother to withdraw in the past 2 years while all the alleged w@r cr!mes were happening, why wait until the w@r is over to withdraw? None of them withdrew when Azerbaijan allegedly committed w@r cr!mes and rigged the televote in 2011. They did not boycott during Turkey’s alleged w@r cr!mes and while Russia was blamed for committing atroc!t!es long before they were excluded. They did not withdraw after the ESC Juries coordinated votes in 2022. They did not withdraw after the last two Ukrainian political victories. So why now? What’s the big… Read more »
Bingo!
Well said Jake. Couldn’t agree more
Uhmm you’re twisting s*** to a certain extent. Azerbaijan was caught on camera rigging televote yes, but once again I have to react to the fact that it was Armenia who invaded parts of Azerbaijan, not the other way around.
The broadcasters of Ireland, Iceland, Netherlands, Spain and Slovenia should organise a concert. Host in Hilversum, where each country sends their 5 best entries from the past (so totalling 25 songs) and stage a televised show on the same night as Eurovision.
I’d watch. Plus it would brings us humans back together and keep the spirit alive.
won’t be missed at all ! Bye !
Good! More countries should have spoken up. For the EBU, silence = complacency, so yeah.
(And for once Iceland actually follows up on their word instead of saying a lot but doing nothing like in the past 2 years)
Silence = complicity
Let’s be honest, these countries were rare qualifiers (Ireland, Iceland, Slovenia)… Let’s not mention about Spain and their songs being on the bottom of the final each year…
You just don’t get it Dida…
So, that means Israel can continue to kill people, kill journalist, stop food and continuing the genocide?
By this stupid logic, let’s write down a hypothesis. The worse at Eurovision, the better at human rights!
Iceland is a frequent qualifier though.
Honesty is not the same as being biased. Burst your bubble before commenting
Who cares, they have more backbone than anyone of you here at least
and you conveniently didn’t mention the netherlands lol
Spain finished 3rd in 2022.
won’t miss them at all
You won’t miss them so much you felt the need to tell us all.
perhaps you protest too much eh?
What will the Icelandic gonna do m, I thought they live Eurovision.
Human rights and humanity first
Hatrið mun sigra!
Well, hopefully it won’t.
The 70th year of esc which should be a party, yet this brings the total so far to 5 non returning countries. A dark cloud is hanging over eurovision 2026
A poll shows that the British public is in favor of boycotting the Eurovision Song Contest if Israel participates. A Portuguese preliminary contestant would withdraw from the competition if Israel were to participate, even if they were selected as the representative. The winner of San Remo would also not exercise their right to compete in a contest with Israel. The contest would then be broadcast on German national television, with only Germany and Israel involved.
That’s the only way Germany could win again. It’s all part of a bigger plan 😉
I don’t judge any broadcaster for doing what they think it right. Be it stay or go. The ones staying don’t necessarily feel any less empathy for the people of Palestine, perhaps they just don’t believe that the participation in the contest is detrimental to their welfare. I don’t know. I just don’t know.
I agree with that statement, I just wish that rules would be respected and politics would stay out of what used to be a fun song contest…
You don’t know so, maybe, just don’t make a fool of yourself by saying that a broadcaster, “maybe”,-doesn’t care” about Palestinians when even Israel’s broadcaster does a lot of collaboration and peace programs materials as well as accommodating Israeli Arabs. And participating in Eurovision includes precusely that – with Israel’s Jewish-Arab duet in 2009, Lucy the Arab host in 2019 ESC. Funny how when you though Israel was going to be out you were all smugged saying “nothing personal against the Israeli people”. Now you clinge to “personal against Palestinian” while you also conveniently forget their widely elected leaders who… Read more »
And claiming that broadcasters don’t believe their participation is “detrimental” to Palestinians “welfare” is further manipulative self washy-wash to accuse of “not caring” for them and bull to tie caring fir people on the basis of participating on a music contest.
All in all, you always philosophies, admitting you don’t really know all motives and emotions of broadcaster managements while you are smugged when you think Israel and its people get excluded, then hinting still hinting to accuse others for not caring for certain people’s welfare. Brilliant.
Sun, you have projected all sorts of stuff onto me that comes straight out of your own brain. Not mine.
Pretty shocking how people share these news through eurovisionw*rld.com, when it is funded by Israelis.
Thanks to Wiwibloggs we get news given through neutral words, not pushing agendas!
Eurovisionworld has always been pro-Israel and pro-Russia, I can’t believe people actually use their site for anything.
They do phishing to get all sort of information about users.
At least not political agendas.
Can we please only have actual European Countries in the Song Contest ,
With the roster at 34 (for now), this contest will have the fewest entries since the contest became a 2- or 3-day event in 2004.
Love you for this Iceland, the way to go!!
Whatever their entries are, cringe especially those VAEB brothers from this year contest. Hopefully, the EBU is going to start thinking about reforming the semis now that countries are starting to pull out. Having 13 countries and 10 qualifiers in a semi-final would be a joke.
nothing cringier than new day will rise
I welcome and fully support Iceland’s decision.
Unfortunately we are even nearly there. 35 competing countries in this whitewashing contest are too many. The general public’s apathy or even worse lack of humanity is deafening. More countries need to withdraw for real pressure to begin to mount for the EBU and force their hand to disqualify Israel.
Hate will not win. The losers are out.
Hate won when so many poor souls disappeared in G@za. We will make sure it never wins again
You’re only making sure hate keeps going with your own anti-Eurovision comments which also whitewash and project from their own regime actually responsible to its poor souls-civilians disappearing.
@sun
seek professional help.
Iceland has been one of my all time favourite Eurovision countries, and is the home of my favourite Eurovision song, “Minn Hinsti Dans” by Påll Oskar.
And this bold statemenr that they have just made by withdrawing has honestly taken my love for Iceland up several notches.
A small country with a bigger backbone than the EBU.
And big love to the other four countries that have also made a stand.
A great country and a great song!
Iceland made a good, but hard decision. I just listened to “Eitt lag enn” to honour Iceland in the Eurovision Contest. Hopefully the ESC will be given back to us who are really loving it and who are sad because of the stupid decisions made by the EBU. I have to listen to Europapa as well.
Hopefully
This is probably the best statement we had. This contest will definitely be a poor one. What a sad 70th one…
People need to chill out with speculation that this is the beginning of withdrawals. It’s likely the end, unless there are further controversies with EBU/KAN.
The deadline to withdraw was today, countries face fines for withdrawing after today, that’s not a decision they’ll take lightly if they’ve already agreed to participate.
Didn’t Ukraine withdraw in 2019 after the deadline because of controversy at their national contest? Were there any other late withdrawals in the past, and were they fined?
It is quite probable that, if anyone is going to change their minds this winter, they would have little trouble doing so, fine or no fine. Under present circumstances, it could happen.
I guarantee you there will be more countries that will end up withdrawing for one reason or another.
The irony of all this is now all the so call Eurovision fans are now sounding like people who really hates the contest and looking forward to its demise.
Time to look for a new bubble once all this is done and dusted.
I’m a big fan, but this monstrosity has nothing to do with Eurovision anymore. I hope it completely collapses and that from its remains a better contest will rise again.
We used to talk about the Big Five in Eurovision.
Now we have the Brave Five.
Great statement. R.E.S.P.E.C.T.!
It’s clear the EBU loves one country more than five others.
No. The EBU are just sticking to their own rules of not banning a broadcaster for the government actions and not breaking EBU rules. The difference with Russian broadcaster is that they did break EBU rules.
Most of the Portuguese artists running at the national selection already announced they wont be representing the country at the Eurovision. So Portugal will be out too
This is an interesting case from Portugal, because it has never happened before quite like this. If RTP said “yes” to participating, then presumably they’d either have to internally select an act from elsewhere, effectively pay a penalty to withdraw, or send three minutes of choreographed silence.
No. RTP already said they will participate no matter what. But let’s see who the lucky selected artist is.
Portugal will send another artist because the Portuguese government and broadcaster are not blinded by hate against Israel as their neighbour Sanchez in Spain
“Most”. Not all. So they’ll just go down the list until one of the artists who will go.
I don’t think the artist will go after being the 15th choice…
Rtp have confirmed they will still participate regardless
Well done. Hope private broadcasters set up now their own version of ESC and burry this one to the ground. Been a fan for decades… the way EBU has been acting is disgusting.
What if they invite Israel too?
People laughed when Russia did it and comments of “it must be rubbish” when it was actually quite good. This probably won’t be much different. Where it will be good, but not a lot will actually watch. But those saying “respect” will still watch Eurovision.
Come on, others. Do the right thing. It is never too late.
The fact that one country has clearly turned a peace contest into a piss contest justifies just in itself the fact of refusing to go. I’m so disappointed at @francetelevision for not withdrawing when clearly it’ s not a song contest anymore and it has reached even the point of security threats and corruption and propaganda and hypocrisy. I will either boycott or at least not spend a dime voting and disconnect my WiFi during a certain 3 min of propaganda.
For those of you calling for boycott, will you follow your own conscience and boycott yourself? Which would mean you do not follow the contest at all this year or comment on it in forums such as this? Let’s see if you follow your own advice.
Most definitely won’t. You getting downvoted proves that as you’re touching nerves. Anyone who preaches boycotts but still watches themselves are major hypocrites. It tells me they’re only being performative and that their f.o.m.o is more important to them than anything happening in the middle east. And that would be boycotting the whole contest as to them, the EBU and every broadcaster taking part is endorsing KANs participation. The whole “I’ll look away for three minutes” is such a cop out. Wanting their cake and eating it. That’s not a boycott, that’s a toilet break disguised as a “look at… Read more »
You can be sure that for the first time in 35 years I will not watch any of the shows and not comment in any forum. I will watch a film those evenings.
Personally if I cave and Don t manage to boycott at least you still have the power to NOT spend a dime voting and disconnect all data or TV during those 3 minutes… My bathroom break already was planned during the last few contests I mean… Only this year enough is enough and it would be more of an active gesture of blackout.
Wonderful decision. Let’s also not forget that the boycott is happening all across Europe: even among the participating countries, artists are mobilizing and calling out this farce. I expect many countries will struggle to find a decent act, and regret their decision as tensions keep rising. Once again, under the excuse of “no politics” the EBU is creating the most political situation ever.
I highly respect the opinion of Noa (Israel 2009) who said that while she doesn’t support cutural boycotts, she still thinks Israel should have withdrawn on their own.
EBU aren’t making it political. It’s the so called fans and broadcasters making it political. There would also be backlash if they banned KAN and that would be seen as political. So they can’t be making it political if they’re seen that way no matter what they do.
Think Finland and Portugal will be countries that will struggle with artist boycotts the most
Great news! Thank you, Iceland.
And today eleven acts in the Portuguese national selection confirmed that they will not compete in Eurovision should they win Festival da Canção 2026!
More please 🙂
So you’re boycotting the whole contest then?
Well… Last news you still had the power to decide to NOT spend a dime voting this year at long last and do a 3 min blackout with no stream no data no TV only during those 3 minutes… I guess that s what I’ll end up doing… And be disspointed by France UK and Germany by clearly not giving a f *’/ about the contest and continuing going and paying when it s more than obvious that it is not a song contest anymore. More of a piss contest instead of the peace contest it used to be.
So 1 Asian country has made 5 actual European countries withdraw from “Eurovision” Song Contest
As soon as someone talks about how Europeans are more important than countries outside of Europe, and that only Europeans should be in it. I know they’re a racist.
And if Israel is “Asian” then you admit that the Jews are native to Israel and it’s their land.
They’re either European invaders or they’re middle eastern natives. You can’t have it both ways.
Portuguese artists of FDC signed a manifesto boycotting participation in ESC 2026.They will refuse to participate if they win.Im sure this will happen in a lot more national finals.Like a said this is not the end of the story and some broadcasters will be pushed to the limit and they will to reconsiderate their participation.
Waiting for the very predictable Zio comments now featuring hits such as:
“One less toilet break country”
“The most antisemitic country in the North Atlantic”
“They never send good songs anyway”
And bonus points
“They made Eurovision political, they’re crybabies”
Yawn
The predictable hits from anti-Israel
“What about Russia”
“Why are Israel in it. They’re not in Europe”
“EBU love one country more than five European counties”
“They policitisised the contest”
“They cheated and rigged the televote”
“I’ll boycott for three minutes”
“Eurovision is dead”
“Playing the victim”
“Playing the race card again ?”
Nope, there’s just one reason why we are anti Israel. If you still don’t get it, you’re part of the problem.
Nationality and or religion is not the same as race. Criticising a state is also not the same as criticising a people.
You will be missed but this is necessary to preserve human rights. This is my first year following the contest and I’m devastated that the EBU only cares about the amount of money in their wallets and not the suffering in Palestine.
So you’re not watching the contest in 2026 then? Or do you care more about watching the contest than what’s happening in Palestine?
Welcome to the right side of the room Iceland, take your place next to your brethren who show true European values.
Iceland, Spain, Netherlands, Ireland and Slovenia are real ones.
Showing me that there is still some true humans left in all of this.
Now let us watch Eurovision implode next year as a result of its greed and spineless attitude. And they only have themselves to blame.
Kudos once again, my great neighbour in the north.
And another country who haven’t featured in the top 10 consistently or the semi’s for that matter drops out… ?
Unbelievable to choose one country over 5, unbelievable EBU you have no backbone!
The result was 75-25 in Israels favour
Stop providing fake info. The vote was not about Israel being out or in, but the vote was about if members support or not new voting regulations. It was a game played by the EBU to avoid vote on Israel.
Downvoted for facts.
$$$ £££ €€€
If five bullies bully innocent child at school, should the child be expelled from the school or them? Why does Israel participate in European football and basketball leagues, (and today after end of the war European teams also play in Israel) and in a music competition, little number of countries want to boycott Israel, which defended its citizens (incl. 20% of Israeli population* Israeli Arabs) against big armies of terrorists from Gaza, Lebanon?
If you feel “bullied” because 5 countries are taking a stand over war crimes and human rights abuses, then you’re the problem.