Bulgaria

LONDON — Ireland will boycott the Eurovision Song Contest for a second year over Israel’s participation, the country’s national broadcaster said Thursday.

RTÉ said it will not send an act to the 2027 competition in Bulgaria and will not broadcast the show because of the “appalling and ongoing loss of lives in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there which continues to put the lives of so many civilians at risk.”

Ireland was one of five countries — along with the Netherlands, Iceland, Slovenia and Spain — to skip Eurovision this year to protest Israel’s inclusion in the pan-continental music contest.

Eurovision Director Martin Green said organizers regretted RTÉ’s decision but “fully respect” it.

“All broadcasters decide on an annual basis to participate in the following year’s contest. We will remain in dialogue with RTÉ and hope to welcome them back to the contest in the future,” Green said.

Dutch broadcaster AVROTROS announced last month it will also boycott next year, calling Eurovision a “platform for division.”

“AVROTROS will not participate in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2027 because the event can no longer be considered neutral, with a participating country still involved in a large-scale military conflict,” it said.

Next year’s competition is due to take place in Bulgaria’s Black Sea resort of Burgas in May, after Bulgarian singer Dara won the 2026 event with her infectious party anthem “Bangaranga.”

The contest was founded in 1956, in part to help unite a shattered continent after World War II. It pits acts from dozens of countries against one another for the continent’s musical crown.

Israel has taken part in Eurovision since 1973, one of a few non-European countries to compete. But calls for Israel to be kicked out have swelled over the conduct of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza.

The 2024 Eurovision contest in Malmo, Sweden, the 2025 in Basel, Switzerland and this year’s contest in Vienna saw pro-Palestinian protests and heightened security.

SOFIA: An explosion and fire have hit an ammunition storage site in Bulgaria, police said Saturday, weeks after a blaze at another munitions facility in the country.

The latest incident happened late Friday at a warehouse operated by Bulgarian arms maker EMCO, whose munitions are used in Ukraine, near the central village of Gorni Varpishta.

No casualties were reported and workers were evacuated from the site.

Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev said the blaze broke out at one warehouse at the facility, triggering explosions.

There was no danger of the fire spreading to other warehouses or beyond the storage complex, he told a press conference.

“All hypotheses are on the table and we are examining them carefully,” he said, adding the storage facilities had some shortcomings, including poor security.

The warehouse contained explosive materials, including around 100 munition rounds, the armaments company said.

The incident came about a month after a fire at an ammunition depot at another nearby EMCO plant in Bulgaria, a NATO member and supporter of Ukraine.

EMCO ruled out human error in that case, and prosecutors are investigating.

President Iliana Iotova said Saturday she was considering convening Bulgaria’s national security council, a presidential advisory body that brings together senior political, security and defense officials.

“Cases of explosions at ammunition depots have become more frequent,” she said.

EMCO is owned by Bulgarian defense executive Emilian Gebrev, who survived a poisoning attempt in 2015 together with his son and another company executive.

Bulgarian prosecutors have charged three Russian nationals over the poisoning.

Separately, six Russians have also been charged with terrorism over four explosions at arms facilities in the country between 2011 and 2020.

Prosecutors said the four blasts were remotely triggered and suspected the incidents were linked to efforts to disrupt arms supplies to Georgia and Ukraine.

Bulgaria has supported Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

There have been a string of incidents at defense companies in European countries that support Ukraine in recent weeks.

Firebombs were thrown near defense company offices in the German city of Munich earlier this month and an ammunition factory near Rome operated by arms maker KNDS was hit by a blast in August.

No injuries were reported in either case.

AVROTROS says escalating international conflicts are undermining the event’s neutrality and fuelling divisions.

The public broadcaster in the Netherlands has announced it will not participate in next year’s Eurovision Song Contest because the event can “no longer be considered neutral” due to ongoing divisions over the war in Gaza.

“It is undeniable that international conflicts are increasingly affecting the Contest, undermining its neutral character. The Eurovision Song Contest has therefore become a platform for division,” said Taco Zimmerman, Director-General of AVROTROS, in a statement on Monday.

The widely-watched show has recently faced a series of boycotts over Israel’s participation. Organisers announced earlier this month that they would exclude any country involved in an armed conflict from hosting the competition.

“However, the recently announced changes… do not provide sufficient confidence that the independent and neutral character of the Eurovision Song Contest has been restored,” the AVROTROS statement added.

Israel finished second in the competition – the world’s largest live televised music event – in both 2025 and 2026.

Next year’s Eurovision is due to be held in Bulgaria’s Black Sea city of Burgas, after Bulgarian singer Darina Yotova, known as Dara, won this year’s contest in Vienna, Austria, with her catchy floor-filler ‘Bangaranga’. The contest on May 15 will be the first time the Balkan nation has hosted.

Since its launch in 1955, Eurovision has become the ultimate pop platform, catapulting Swedish icons ABBA to worldwide fame, while also boosting the careers of artists such as Celine Dion, Cliff Richard and Olivia Newton-John.

However, this year’s competition pulled in 131 million viewers, 35 million fewer than last year, after five countries boycotted over Israel’s participation. The Netherlands, Iceland, Spain, Ireland, and Slovenia all pulled out, with the latter three refusing to broadcast the show at all.