RTS Faces Calls to Boycott Eurovision 2027 Over Israel

Eight queer organizations, led by the Belgrade Queer Choir, have publicly called on Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) to boycott Eurovision 2027 if Israel remains part of the contest. The demand arrived as a letter addressed directly to the broadcaster’s leadership, and the Belgrade Queer Choir made it public on the evening of September 25.

According to that announcement, the letters were sent to RTS director general Manja Grcic and to the RTS Management Board. There are eight signatories in total: the Belgrade Queer Choir, the IZADjI group, the Center for Queer Studies, the Kul.t group, L* Communio, Talas TIRV, the Center for Women’s Studies, and BRINA. Institutional criticism of this scale, aimed at a public broadcaster just as it prepares for a run at the continent’s biggest music contest, rarely arrives this concentrated or with this many names attached at once.

The letter argues that RTS should not compete in Eurovision as long as Israel remains part of it, citing what the organizations describe as occupation, apartheid, and genocide. The same letter recalls that five public broadcasters withdrew from last year’s contest, without naming them individually, though the reference is enough to place the request to RTS within a wider European pattern rather than treat it as an isolated demand.

Neither RTS nor its Management Board has responded to the request so far, at least not publicly. Silence in a situation like this carries its own message: the public broadcaster has yet to say whether it will follow the broadcasters that withdrew last year, or defend its participation as a sporting and cultural matter kept separate from politics around the Middle East.

The pressure lands just as the picture around Eurovision 2027 is still taking shape. We previously reported that the Netherlands is returning to the contest after last year’s boycott, and that Dutch broadcaster AVROTROS is holding its course despite pressure at home. That case shows the decision to compete is not unanimous even among countries that boycotted last year, which makes the request to RTS part of a broader, still unresolved dispute over who will actually be at the table in 2027.

Cultural policy is rarely stated this bluntly, without the usual hedging and diplomatic language, as a demand that an institution take a public side before it has even made a decision. For RTS, that means any answer, whenever it comes, will have to be explicit. A quiet non-entry is no longer something that passes without explanation, not after a letter signed by eight organizations.