A National Language Revival? Spain Pushes for 2018 Changes

With Portugal winning Eurovision 2017 with a song completely in national language, it isn’t much of a surprise that some of the competing nations are opting to ditch English and return to using the official languages of their nation. We know that Slovenia are choosing to stick with national language in their national final, and now it seems as if Spain might be following down the same road.

It’s been revealed that the leading Spanish opposition party, the PSOE want Spanish Languages to solely feature at Objetivo Eurovisión. A clear proposal has been made to the Committee of Culture in Congress stating that the Spanish representatives as part of the selection may only perform in Spanish, Catalan, Basque or Galician. It’s also stated that this shouldn’t compromise the selection of a qualified and talented performer – they want the full package! If this rule does get accepted, it will apply to RTVE’s search for the Eurovision 2018 representative.

It has been a tough road for Spain in the modern day Eurovision, with Top 10 results few and far between. Apart from a few stand out entries, such as the 2012 entry from Pastora Soler, and the 2014 entry from Ruth Lorenzo, Spain often finds themselves in the places 20-26 – but this is regardless of whether the entry was in Spanish or in English. Perhaps the issue is not with the language, but simply with the song, however with Portugal’s inspiring win, it seems that Spain wants to recreate that same success – a great song, but completely in a national language.

Do you think this could be a successful approach for Spain? What will it take to bring Spain back to the Top 10?