RTVE: “We will consider our Junior Eurovision participation in upcoming editions”

20 countries will travel to the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2018 that will take place in Belarus. One of them, France, has returned to the contest after an absence of 14 years. Spain can’t compete at this year’s edition, but RTVE has revealed that they will consider a come-back in upcoming editions.

Back in 2007, Javier Pons, RTVE’s director at that time, said that Spain had withdrawn from JESC because the contest promoted stereotypes that they didn’t share and due to the exploitation to which children were subjected. Since then, 11 years ago, Spain hasn’t participated at Junior Eurovision despite many attempts in recent years, but this could change shortly.

Following the slight changes of the Spanish delegation with the arrival of Ana Maria Bordás as the new head in 2017, RTVE took an unexpected turn thinking about the return to some events included in the Eurovision family. The ‘come-back’ to the Eurovision Young Musicians was considered and later approved. Now, it looks like they’re discussing the future participation in Junior Eurovision.

The participation in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest involves a bunch of more elaborate preparations, which could not be completed due to the uncertainty that RTVE has been facing in the past months after the appointment of Rosa María Mateo as the temporary manager of the broadcaster.

Clarified the situation of RTVE, being in the middle of August and with a significant amount of work ahead, it became difficult to continue thinking about a return to Junior Eurovision. The lack of time is one of the reasons why the participation of Spain in this year’s edition was ruled out.

In the middle of this process, ESCplus has had the chance to know that the new management board has welcomed the possibility of joining Junior Eurovision in the future. For all these reasons, they have stated that they are willing to consider the Spanish participation in future editions of the contest. That will happen if the temporary directive board continues, bearing in mind that a public competition will be held to select the final team.

This year the Junior Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, on November 25. A record-breaking list of 20 countries will feature the same participants of the last year’s edition except for Cyprus, which has withdrawn from the competition, three returning countries, France, Azerbaijan, Israel, and two debuting ones, Kazakhstan and Wales.

What do you think about the final decision of RTVE? Do their reasons seem convincing? Would you like to see Spain in Junior Eurovision 2019? Share your thoughts with ESCPlus.