By Manuela Achilles and Peter Debaere
This article demonstrates that participation in the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) functions as a para-diplomatic practice that both expresses and constitutes European belonging. Although the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) presents Eurovision as an apolitical media event, the contest has long served as a site for the articulation of alignment with, or distance from, European norms, audiences, and institutions. Using longitudinal data, we show that engagement in the contest has often exceeded and at times anticipated European Union (EU) candidacies and accessions, particularly during the post-Cold War period and after the 2004 enlargement. Human rights have also become an increasingly salient reference point in these developments, in part because Eurovision’s list of participants has come to overlap more closely with the membership of the Council of Europe, Europe’s premier human rights organization. Case trajectories that include entry into, withdrawal from, and boycott from the song contest tend to illustrate and to define this dynamic. By examining patterns of participation and absence, we reassess the implications of institutional neutrality during periods of geopolitical strain. Participation constitutes a political statement.
The Political Dynamics of Institutional Neutrality
In the spring of 2024, the Eurovision Song Contest became the focus of intense public debate in Ireland.[1] As Israel’s participation proceeded amid the ongoing war in Gaza, musicians and members of the public questioned whether the country’s continued involvement aligned with humanitarian concerns and a commitment to press freedom. Ireland’s public broadcaster RTÉ decided to remain in the competition, citing its obligations as a member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). The EBU, for its part, reiterated its established position. Eurovision, it maintained, is not a contest among states, but rather a song contest organized by broadcasting organizations and therefore lacks explicit political intent.[2] Yet the EBU’s attempt to recast the debate in technical rather than political terms did not end the controversy. During the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest, Israel’s participation again generated debate across Europe, which intensified after its strong placement in the final. Public discussion in several countries addressed voting patterns, audience reactions, and the broader legitimacy of Israel’s continued inclusion. The EBU defended the integrity of the process and emphasized the contest’s stated apolitical character.
In 2026, this tension shifted from debate to withdrawal. Several countries—including Ireland, Iceland, the Netherlands, Spain, and Slovenia—announced that they would not take part in the contest.[3] These withdrawals reflected earlier objections to Israel’s continued participation in light of developments in Gaza. This episode underscores a broader point: regardless of the EBU’s insistence on political neutrality, participation in the Eurovision Song Contest is inseparable from political and normative judgments about belonging, legitimacy, and access to European (media) space. In this respect, the episode fits an established pattern.[4] From the contest’s inception in 1956, countries have long understood participation as a way of positioning themselves symbolically in relation to Europe, its values, and its audiences. During the Cold War, for instance, Yugoslavia’s participation offered a non-aligned socialist state a way to signal openness to Western cultural exchange, while authoritarian Francoist Spain used Eurovision to present itself as internationally recognized and modern.
The ability of states to use ESC participation for political purposes derives from the EBU’s organizational structure. Membership is defined by technical criteria rather than political regime type or participation in European integration projects. National broadcasters must come from a state that is a member of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) or a United Nations (UN) agency and be located within the European Broadcasting Area (EBA). Because inclusion rests on technical criteria, the ESC can bring together liberal democracies, authoritarian states, and neutral countries under a shared institutional umbrella. From an institutional perspective, participation proceeds through membership categories and special invitations that project continuity, professionalism, and fairness. This framework has allowed Eurovision to operate as a political arena precisely because it rejects political intent. Political meaning shifts to reception and interpretation, which permits the creation of shared cultural references that formally remain outside politics.[5]
Participation in the contest is expensive, but the visibility it affords is priceless. Today, with an audience of well over 160 million viewers worldwide—more than the US Superbowl—Eurovision’s reach far exceeds that of many explicitly political institutions, which makes it an efficient vehicle for symbolic alignment with Europe. In this article we use longitudinal data to demonstrate that patterns of participation and withdrawal closely track broader trajectories of political and economic integration with Europe. Participation has therefore functioned as a cultural register of political alignment, allowing countries to signal orientation toward Europe without formal institutional commitment. We conclude by considering how tensions between Europe as a political project and Europe as a cultural formation share current disputes over participation and exclusion. These patterns raise broader questions about the drivers of Eurovision’s expansion within Europe.
Participation as a Signal of EU Integration
The ESC began in the late 1950s shortly before the Treaty of Rome created the European Community among six states (Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands). Over the following decades, European economic and political integration proceeded in stages. Direct elections to the European Parliament took place. The Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty (1992) extended integration beyond a customs union toward a common market, expanded free movement of capital and people, and later introduced the euro for a subset of members. During this period, the number of member states in the EU increased steadily, as shown by the blue line in Figure 1.
ESC participation by EU and earlier EC member states followed a similar trajectory. As the red line in Figure 1 indicates, participation among member states has remained consistently high, and often all EU member states have attended. When interruptions in this trend occurred, they usually reflected the cost of participation or disagreements over contest rules rather than broader disengagement. For example, Italy’s extended absence ended only after it was offered “Big Five” status—alongside France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom—which guarantees a place in the final. Luxembourg’s record reflects comparable disputes over financing and governance. Before the introduction of semifinals in 2004, a weak performance one year by one country could also prevent its participation in the following year.[6]
Figure 1 illustrates that the number of countries participating in the ESC has always exceeded that of EU or EC member states. Even as the Community expanded to include the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Denmark in 1973, the ESC stage featured roughly twice as many countries as the number of EC/EU member states. From the outset, the contest delineated a cultural Europe that extended beyond the boundaries of the formal political membership and, in several cases, anticipated later phases of integration.
Figure 2 clarifies the relationship between ESC participation and EU membership. The orange line tracks countries that were not EU members when they participated in the ESC but later became EU members (before 2026). In the 1960s and 1970s, this group included Austria (EC member in 1995), Finland (1995), Greece (1981), Malta (2004), Portugal (1986), Sweden (1995), and Spain (1986)—countries whose accession lay years or even decades ahead.[7] Their regular presence on the Eurovision stage points to a pattern in which participation in a European cultural program preceded formal political integration, even in cases in which institutional membership came much later.
This pattern became more pronounced in the early 1990s. When the Berlin Wall fell, countries from the former Eastern bloc moved quickly to take part in the Eurovision Song Contest. Participation offered them a visible way to present themselves as part of a Western European cultural sphere. Figure 2 shows a sharp increase in ESC participation during this period, soon aligned with a stepwise expansion of EU membership. Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia all appeared in Eurovision during the early 1990s and later joined the EU as part of the 2004 enlargement, alongside Malta and Cyprus, which had entered the contest even earlier. The sequence does not suggest causality, but it underscores a close temporal relationship between cultural inclusion and political accession.
The dark blue line in Figure 2 highlights a further development: the rise in participation among countries that were EU candidates or would later attain EU candidate status. In the early 2000s, a growing number of states that had entered the formal accession process appeared regularly in the ESC. This group includes Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, Serbia, Montenegro, and, more recently Ukraine, whose candidate status accelerated after Russia’s invasion in 2022. Their participation coincides with the long and demanding process of meeting EU accession criteria. While EU candidacy does not guarantee membership, the pattern suggests that Eurovision participation accompanies a broader orientation toward Europe at a moment when political integration remains uncertain but actively pursued.
The case of Turkey offers a particularly instructive counterpoint to the broader pattern of expansion. Turkey first participated in Eurovision in 1975, decades before it obtained EU candidate status in 1999. From the outset, participation signaled an effort to position the country within a Western European sphere, even as its relationship with European political institutions remained uncertain. For many years, Eurovision provided a visible platform through which Turkey could assert proximity to Europe despite the absence of formal integration. That trajectory has since reversed. Turkey has not submitted an entry to the song contest since 2013. Official explanations have focused on objections to LGBTQ visibility. President Erdoğan has described Eurovision as a threat to family values and a vehicle for what he terms moral and social corruption.[8] These objections, however, reflect broader political developments. Since 2018, Turkey’s EU accession process has effectively stalled amid concerns about democratic backsliding, restrictions on press freedom, and the erosion of judicial independence.[9] In this context, withdrawal from Eurovision signals more than cultural disagreement; it marks a widening distance from European normative frameworks.
Figure 3 places Turkey’s absence in comparative perspective. While most current EU candidate countries have displayed participation rates of 80 percent or higher over the past two decades, Turkey’s rate is markedly lower.[10] This divergence aligns with the broader stagnation of Turkey’s accession process, especially when contrasted with renewed momentum among other candidate states following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.[11] Eurovision participation, in this case, tracks retreat rather than aspiration. Turkey’s disengagement underscores the extent to which absence from the contest can function as a political signal, communicating distance from Europe at moments when formal integration falters.
And Israel?
Israel occupies a distinctive position within the ESC landscape. It was the first non-European country to participate in the contest, debuting in 1973, and has since competed regularly, winning four times—ESC participation has occasionally extended beyond Europe, including Morocco and most recently Australia. Israel’s position becomes clearer when Eurovision participation is considered alongside membership in the Council of Europe, the continent’s principal human rights organization. As shown, while clearly aligned, ESC participation does not align perfectly with EU membership status. The closest institutional overlap lies with the 46 member states of the Council of Europe: all 27 EU member states belong to it, as well as all candidate EU members, and most ESC participants do as well.[12] This overlap adds an additional dimension to recent controversies over participation and boycott, particularly following the withdrawal of several long-standing contestants in response to the situation in Gaza.
As a non-European state, Israel does not belong to the Council of Europe, yet it holds observer status there and participates fully in the ESC. This combination places Israel inside Europe’s cultural and media space while leaving it formally outside the continent’s core human rights institution. Over time, this position has drawn increased scrutiny, and debates over Israel’s observer status in the Council of Europe have intensified due to human rights concerns in that country.[13] These debates extend beyond Israel as such and draw attention to the gap between Europe’s expansive cultural perimeters and the narrower legal and political frameworks that formally define it, as well as to the unresolved question of when continued participation in the ESC can still be squared with claims of shared value.
Comparative cases clarify what is at stake. Russia, which maintained an almost uninterrupted ESC presence for decades, lost both its Council of Europe membership and its place in the contest following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.[14] Belarus, excluded from the Council of Europe because of persistent human rights violations and its support for Russia in the war against Ukraine, has remained suspended from Eurovision since 2021 over concerns related to press freedom. Against this background, Israel’s continued participation, despite sustained public contestation over the situation in Gaza, raises questions about institutional neutrality. Eurovision participation is not merely a technical matter. Rather, the contest constitutes a site where Europe’s normative limits take shape through collective decisions about absence and presence, inclusion and exclusion.
Europe, Belonging, and the Politics of Participation
While the European Broadcasting Union claims Eurovision is apolitical, our analysis shows that participation in the contest has long carried political meaning through structured practices of entry, presence, and withdrawal. From its inception onward, the contest has offered countries a highly visible stage on which to position themselves in relation to Europe, its audiences, and its expectations. Participation functions as a costly public signal rather than a marginal cultural choice. It requires substantial financial commitment, institutional capacity, and domestic support, while it exposes participants to Europe-wide scrutiny. The technocratic framing of the contest as politically neutral does not eliminate political meaning but rather directs public attention to participation itself. Presence and absence are legible indicators of orientation within or toward Europe, with increasing emphasis on human rights.
The longitudinal patterns confirm that ESC participation has consistently extended beyond EU membership and often preceded accession or candidacy. Conversely, sustained withdrawal from the contest aligns with political distancing, as indicated by the case of Turkey. The controversy over Israel’s participation highlights the intensified disputes over human rights and the terms of inclusion, linked to discussions within the Council of Europe. Whether the contest can sustain its claim to an apolitical stance remains an open question.
Peter Debaere is Tipton Snavely Professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. He is an international economist and an expert in the economics of water; he has published in leading field and general-interest journals, and his research has been funded by the National Science Foundation.
Manuela Achilles is Professor of German and History at the University of Virginia and Director of the Center for German Studies. She works on Weimar democracy, fascism, Holocaust memory, and sustainability; recent publications include Invisible Fatherland: Constitutional Patriotism in Weimar Germany (Cambridge University Press, 2026) and Nazis into Victims: Holocaust Fiction without Perpetrators (literaturkritik.de, 2024).
Notes
[1] Evelyn O’Rourke, “Petition Delivered to RTÉ Calling for Eurovision Boycott,” RTÉ 100, April 19, 2024. Petition delivered to RTÉ calling for Eurovision boycott
[2] Lily Ford, “Eurovision Song Contest: Former Entrants Call on Organizers to Ban Israel and Broadcaster Kan,” The Hollywood Reporter, May 6, 2025. Former Eurovision Stars Demand Israel Be Banned From 2025 Contest
[3] Alex Smith, “Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, and Slovenia Boycott Eurovision After Israel Allowed to Compete,” BBC News, December 4, 2025. Netherlands, Spain, Ireland and Slovenia boycott Eurovision after Israel allowed to compete – BBC News
[4] Here and in the following, Dean Vuletic, Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest (London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), 3.
[5] On the “the intrinsic Europeanness” of the ESC, See Vuletic 3-4 and passim.
[6] Jayde Gray, “A History of Eurovision Rule Changes,” Aussievision, May 7, 2020. https://www.aussievision.net/post/a-history-of-eurovision-rule-changes
[7] Here, we count Yugoslavia as a future member, since its parts later became EU members. We also count the UK, even though it left the EU in 2020.
[8] The Associated Press, “Turkey’s Leader Says Eurovision Song Contest is a Threat to Family Values,” NBC News, May 21, 2024. Turkey’s leader says Eurovision Song Contest is a threat to family values
[9] Amandine Hess, “European Parliament: Turkey’s Accession On Hold, No Progress Since 2018,” Euronews, July 5, 2025. European Parliament: Turkey’s accession on hold, no progress since 2018 | Euronews
[10] Because of COVID-19, there was no ESC in 2020. The low rate for Luxembourg is related to disputes about the ESC rules as well as financing issues. Reluctant EU members such as Hungary reveal low participation rates.
[11] Marta Iraola Iribarren, “Candidate Countries Celebrate Renewed Momentum in EU Accession Process,” Euronews, May 11, 2025. Candidate countries celebrate renewed momentum in EU accession process | Euronews
[12] Newly democratic Spain and Portugal joined the Council of Europe in 1976, ten years before they joined the European Economic Community.
[13] The Brussels Times with Belga, “Suspend Israel’s Observer Status at Council of Europe—Flemish Christian Democrats,” The Brussels Times, June 18, 2025. Suspend Israel’s observer status at Council of Europe – Flemish Christian democrats. For the legal argument, see C. Gearty., The Council of Europe and Israel, working paper, London School of Economics.
[14] Greece withdrew from the Council of Europe in 1969, following its 1967 military coup, in order to avoid expulsion. With its democracy restored, it rejoined in 1974. See Resolution 361 (1968) Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe.
