The official EBU announcement regarding Russia’s participation

After SVT’s pressure to exclude Russia from Eurovision Song Contest 2022, the EBU has said that Russia remains welcome at Eurovision 2022.

Jo Waters, Senior Communications Officer of the EBU made an official statement:

As the situation between Russia and Ukraine escalates, access to trusted, factual and impartial information is more critical than ever.

All media broadcasters and the EBU as a union are focused on doing our job for the public in difficult circumstances and will not hesitate to condemn any infringements or violations of press freedom.

It is vital for journalists to be allowed to continue to operate both freely and safely, and report without hindrance. Supporting media freedom must be prioritized, not despite these challenging circumstances, but because of them.

This situation puts the EBU in a difficult position. It is not the governments that are members of the EBU, but the broadcasters. The EBU is not in the position to sanction a member based on the actions of its government. They could claim – as UA:PBC suggested – that the broadcaster violated the member’s codes of conduct – as happened with Belarus.

When the EBU suspended Yugoslavia’s membership in the 1990s, their action was based on a UN Security Council Resolution. This will not happen with Ukraine, since Russia is a permanent member of the council and has the rights of veto power.

Should the EBU choose to suspend membership from Russia, this would be the second time in 12 months that a broadcaster has lost its membership from the EBU. In July 2021, the Belarusian public broadcaster had its EBU membership suspended for failing to meet its freedom of expression obligations.

Ukraine in the top 3 of the betting odds, Russia out of the top 20!

While all of the above is happening, Ukraine has rose again in the betting odds, despite replacing Alina Pash with Kalush Orchestra. They are currently in third place, unlike Russia who has been on a steady fall over the last few hours, and as a result are in 21st place as of now.

Stay tuned to Eurovisionfun for all the developments!