Slovenia: RTVSLO demands Israel’s exclusion from Eurovision 2025!

Last week, RTV Slovenia’s coucnil meeting took place between December 9 and 11. Among the topics discussed, was of course the country’s participation in Eurovision 2025, as well as Israel’s participation, in question with the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

Israel’s participation at these conditions, is a matter that is far from settled for RTVSLO. Regarding the Council meeting, the broadcaster adopted a number of “mandatory guidelines for the management in finalizing the financial plan and program-production plan for 2025”, which also touch the Eurovision Song Contest. RTVSLO councilors voted for a resolution, that requires the broadcaster’s management team to initiate a request within the EBU for Israel not to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest.

As can be seen from the published documentation, the councilors decided on three possible scenarios regarding Eurovision and Israel’s participation:

1. The management of RTV Slovenia should immediately initiate a request within the EBU that Israel not participate in the Eurovision Song Contest. In the event of Israel’s participation, Slovenia will not participate and will not broadcast the event.
2. The management of RTV Slovenia should immediately initiate a request within the EBU that Israel not participate in the Eurovision Song Contest. In the event of Israel’s participation, we black out the broadcast of Israel’s performance.
3. The management of RTV Slovenia should immediately initiate a request within the EBU for Israel not to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest. The RTV Council and the public should be kept informed of these efforts .

In the end, the council voted for the third option. The outcome of this request however, seems already decided, as the EBU announced the participants of Eurovision 2025 a few days ago, and Israel was still in the list. They also announced that there will be some changes in the Contest, but no word about a possible exclusion. Moreover, they emphasized that they want to provide everyone participating in this contest with the best possible experience.

Slovenia in Eurovision 2025

Slovenia will select its entry for Eurovision 2025 through their national final, EMA, which returns after two years. EMA 2025 will be held on February 1. The result will be determined through two rounds of voting. In the first round, five committees will vote using the same method used in Eurovision (1-8, 10 and 12). Each committee will consist of five members who will belong to specific groups of people. The five committees will be:

• Music jury (singers, musicians, producers, songwriters creators etc.)
• Television jury (editors, presenters, directors, choreographers etc.)
• Radio jury (radio editors, journalists, presenters, etc.)
• OGAE Slovenia jury
• International Eurovision influencer jury (bloggers, vloggers, online journalists etc.)

After the above juries have cast their votes, the top two songs will continue to the EMA superfinal round. In this round, the winner will be determined by the public vote.

Last year’s representative of Slovenia in Eurovision 2024 was Raiven with the song “VeronikA” who ended up in 23rd place:

Stay tuned on Eurovisionfun for all the news regarding the Slovenian participation at the Eurovision Song Contest 2025, in Basel!

Source: evrovizija.com