This position was made public in Friday’s RTP workers’ plenary and is signed by lists A and B that ran for the Workers’ Commission, by the Port Workers’ Subcommittee and by several unions (Journalists’ Union, Telecommunications Workers’ Union, National Union of Telecommunications and Audiovisual Workers, Audiovisual Media Union, Independent Union of Information Workers and Communications).
At the EBU general assembly on Thursday it was decided that Israel will be able to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest 2026. Then, Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands and Slovenia announced their boycott of the festival.
Musician Salvador Sobral, winner of Eurovision in 2017, criticized this Friday RTP’s decision to participate in the next edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, having stated that he learned about it during the ‘Juntos por Gaza’ concert, in Lisbon, in which he participated and which will be broadcast on RTP.
“RTP, the State channel, decided to participate in Eurovision even with the participation of Israel. That expression giving a nail and another horseshoe has never made as much sense as last night. National television broadcasts a concert in Gaza and at the same time is afraid of doing the right thing”said the musician in a video shared on Friday on the social network Instagram.
For Salvador Sobra, this is an example of “political cowardice, (…) consistent with the institutional cowardice of public institutions”.
“It makes me sad because it is a simply human issue and the decision that has to be made is obvious”he added.