The second semifinal of the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna delivered the last 10 spots for Saturday’s grand final, completing a 25-act field that includes Denmark’s Søren Torpegaard Lund, Australian star Delta Goodrem, and Bulgarian singer Dara. The qualifiers, who emerged from a field of 15 nations, also include Daniel Žižka of Czechia, Leléka of Ukraine, Alis of Albania, Aidan of Malta, Antigoni of Cyprus, Alexandra Căpitănescu of Romania, and Jonas Lovv of Norway, the Associated Press reported. They join the 10 acts that secured spots through Tuesday’s first semifinal, including Finland’s Pete Parkkonen and Linda Lampenius, Greek rapper Akylas, Serbian goth metal band Lavina, Moldovan folk-rapper Satoshi, and Israeli singer Noam Bettan. The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy (the so-called Big Four funders), and host nation Austria automatically qualify for the final.
But the contest, billed as a celebration of pan-European unity through music, faces a significant political rupture. Five countries — Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Iceland — are boycotting the event over Israel’s inclusion, a protest against the conduct of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. A demonstration against Israel’s participation is planned ahead of Saturday’s final in Vienna. The boycott has drawn a sharp drop in participants, with the number of competing nations the lowest since 2003, though Bulgaria, Moldova, and Romania have returned after skipping recent editions for artistic or financial reasons.
Inside the arena, Israeli contestant Bettan faced some protest chants during his Tuesday performance, the AP noted. Unlike in previous years, Austrian broadcaster ORF, which is hosting the event, said it will allow Palestinian flags into the venue and will not mute any booing from the audience. The EBU, which runs the contest, has also moved to tighten voting integrity after allegations that Israel conducted a rule-breaking marketing campaign to secure votes for Bettan. The EBU halved the number of viewer votes per person to 10 and introduced new safeguards against “suspicious or coordinated voting activity.”
Contest director Martin Green told the AP that he is hopeful Hungary will return to Eurovision for the first time since 2019, following the replacement of nationalist-populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán with Péter Magyar. Green said the door remains open for the five boycotting countries. “We’ve made it very clear to them we can’t wait for them to come back,” he said.
The EBU is also looking beyond Europe, with a spinoff Eurovision Song Contest Asia scheduled to take place in Bangkok in November. The contest has long struggled to keep politics at bay; Russia was expelled in 2022 after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the 2024 event in Malmo, Sweden, and last year’s contest in Basel, Switzerland, saw pro-Palestinian protests demanding Israel’s exclusion.