Eurovision Organizers Rule Ukraine Cannot Safely Host 2023 Competition

Etan Vlessing
·2 min read

The European Broadcasting Union has ruled that Ukraine cannot host the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest amid Russia’s war against that country.

On Thursday, the organizer of the Eurovision contest said in a statement that “in terms of security and operational guarantees, the necessary requirements for hosting, as set out in the rules of the Eurovision Song Contest are not met.” Ukrainian band Kalush Orchestra won Eurovision 2022 on May 14.

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Traditionally, the winner of Eurovision hosts the following year’s event. But with Russia’s war against Ukraine showing no sign of easing or ending, the European Broadcasting Union in an earlier statement said “the security and operational guarantees required for a broadcaster to host, organize and produce the Eurovision Song Contest” would make it too difficult to host the event in Ukraine next year.

The rules of the Eurovision Song Contest state that the competition can be moved in a “force majeure situation such as an ongoing war.” The EBU said Ukraine had notified the broadcast consortium that the “severe” risk of air raids and attacks by aircraft or missiles remained and that additional expert security advice pointed to the “high” risk of a mass casualty event at the 2023 Eurovision event due to the ongoing conflict

“Taking all of this into account the EBU, with regret, made its decision to move the event to another country and will continue discussions on finding a suitable location for next year’s Eurovision Song Contest,” the broadcast consortium concluded.

The EBU is in talks with other public broadcasters, including the BBC, about hosting the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest outside of Ukraine. The Eurovision contest is a live event broadcast simultaneously across Europe and the world in multiple languages.

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