Belgium joins the countries that will participate in Eurovision, compared to Spain, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Ireland

The Belgian public broadcaster RTBF decided this Friday that it will participate in the next edition of the Eurovision Song Contest in 2026, a confirmation that comes a day after the members of the European Public Broadcasting Union (EBU) decided by vote that they will keep Israel in the competition.

This decision has meant that Spain, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Ireland have already announced their decision not to participate in Eurovision, while others have confirmed their attendance. The United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and France have confirmed their participation. Countries have until December 15 to inform the EBU of their decision.

The executive director of the Belgian channel, Jean-Paul Philippot, has defended that the decision to participate is compatible with a “clear stance of denouncing the obstacles to freedom of information, demanding the protection of all citizens and journalists and guaranteeing their safe presence on the ground.”

“Culture is never entertainment unrelated to reality,” the executive continued in statements broadcast by the network itself in which he also stressed that “public service has the duty to be faithful to humanity, editorial independence and freedom.

Likewise, he has defended that participating in the song festival “cannot be done without looking at the world as it is and remembering that the duty to inform must be exercised with total independence and that providing citizens with the tools to understand the problems facing the world is an essential democratic foundation.”

The two public channels in Belgium – the French-speaking RTBF and the Flemish VRT – take turns each year in managing and broadcasting the Eurovision Song Contest, so this year the decision whether to participate in it fell to RTBF. VRT, responsible last year and which cut the broadcast during Israel’s participation in protest of the genocide, has indicated that it will also broadcast the contest signal this year but “with restrictions.