The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), organizer of the Eurovision Song Contest, has decided leave Russia out of this year’s competition after the invasion of Ukraine by this country.
The decision of the Executive Committee of this organization comes only a few hours after expressing just the opposite position, claiming then that it is an initiative “cultural of a non-political nature”.
In a new statement they argue that, after consulting with the Reference Group (the main governing body of the festival) and “based on the rules of the event and the values of the EBU”, allow the inclusion of a Russian artist would enter the contest “in disrepute”.
The UER, which insists on referring to itself as “an apolitical organization of broadcasting entities with a vocation for public service”, indicates that it has taken this change of position “in light of an unprecedented crisis in Ukraine” and after consulting all its members, among which is RTVE for Spain.
Likewise, it underlines that it remains “dedicated to the protection of the values of a cultural competition thate promotes international exchange and understandingbringing together audiences, celebrating musical diversity and bringing the whole of Europe together on one stage”.
The EBU’s response comes after a previous request from the Ukrainian network UA: PBC, which requested its expulsion from the contest for being “a Kremlin mouthpiece and a key political propaganda tool financed from the Russian state budget.
Several countries had joined this request in the last hours, among them, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania or Sweden, one of the mainstays of the event, whose spokespersons had pointed out that “Russia had crossed the limits”.
In its 64 editions, never before had a country been expelled in this way from Eurovision, despite the fact that the festival has welcomed dictatorships, such as Spain when it began to participate in 1961 or Portugal in 1964. (I)
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Source: Eluniverso
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