During the Eurovision Songfestival, one rule is above all other: no politics.
That order is enforced by the organizer of the competition, The European Temporary TunionAn opaque federation of nearly 70 broadcasters of the public service, based in Geneva. It investigates the texts of artists, their outfits and even their stage props in the hope of bringing some Swiss neutrality into the competition and all controversially to avoid spoiling pleasure.
But when the Eurovision final takes place this Saturday at the home grass of the European Broadcasting Union in Basel, Switzerland, politics will still bubble in the background, even if the organizers succeed in keeping such topics of the stage.
At a time when the effects of Israel’s war in Gaza are still babbling through cultural life, and Russia and Wit -Russia’s pariahs are because of the invasion of Ukraine, the question raises who competes in Eurovision in Eurovision. And the question of what is actually political can be, smooth, and one for which the European employment union sometimes misses a consistent answer.
In recent weeks, broadcasters in Spain” Ireland And Slovenia have called for a debate about the participation of Israel, in which a furore was repeated that threatened to overshadow the competition of last year. Before the final final, in Malmo, Sweden, some Eurovision artists signed petitions and made statements to evoke the exclusion of Israel because of his actions in Gaza. Some public members The singer of Israel During the final, although others cheered.
Eurovision officials responded with a rule to which the competition has held on at previous moments of tension: Eurovision, it said, is a competition between broadcasters, not for countries. That means that the actions of a government have no influence on the competition.
This year the European Broadcasting Union has one code of conduct demand that all artists and their teams do not abandon “make political explanations or cause controversies.” The same mentioned Martin Green, a British event producer who worked on the ceremonies at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, to supervise the competition and to act as a spokesperson if problems arise.
“Errors were made last year and we all learned from them,” Green said in an interview, adding that Eurovision now had a “fine line to step.” But in the end, he said, it was “a prime-time family TV program” whose viewers would be eliminated by politics.
The activities of the European Broadcasting Union are wider than just Eurovision: it has around 500 employees who lobby on behalf of his broadcasters and broadcasters on the impact of new technologies, such as AI his board and general meeting, which do not publish any minutes of their meetings, as well as those activities, as well as Eurovision.
Because the public broadcasters of Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain pay the most for the financing of Eurovision, those “Big Five” countries automatically eligible for the final of the competition.
Sarah Yuen, the executive supervisor of Eurovision for the 2003 competition, said that Eurovision was backstage like “the United Nations of Television”, and was never free from diplomatic disputes or patriotian peacocks.
On stage “Every country in the competition always tries to show that it is more important than the next,” Yuen said. Some national delegations Jockey also behind the scenes for the best conditions for their acts, she added.
In the early decades of the competition, after it was founded in 1956, politics was not such a matter on stage, but often the mood to choose the winner. In addition to a public telephone vote, juries who represent each nation often exchange points, often trading the top scores with friendly, diplomaticly aligned countries.
That could sometimes feel a proxy for Foreign Affairs, but it was only in recent decades that geopolitical conflicts were threatening to spill the stage. In 2009, for example, the European Broadcasting Union demanded that Georgia changed its entry – called a disco number “We don’t want to do” – Because it sounded like a reference to President Vladimir V. Putin from Russia, only a few months after Georgia and Russia had fought a short war (((Georgia refusedand withdrew from the competition of that year.)
Last year, the trade union asked Israel to change The title and some texts of his entry, “October Rain”, because it seemed to be about sorrow about the Hamas attacks of 7 October. The song was given the title ‘Hurricane’, and some of his verses had changed.
During the recent interview, Green had trouble explaining how the organization decides whether texts are political. “It is very difficult to be black and white,” he said, after a long break, and added that the test was or seemed like an act seemed like they were trying to instrate the game. “
The challenge of keeping politics at a distance went much further than the texts in 2021, when Wit -Russia started with a reduced anti -overnment protests. The board of the European Broadcasting Union decided to suspend White -Russia ‘State broadcaster – which means that it could no longer compete in Eurovision – about what the “exceptional” government interference called in the activities of the broadcaster.
Then, in 2022, Russia started his full invasion of Ukraine. The trade union initially adhered to his line that Eurovision is ‘a non -political cultural event’ between broadcasters, not in countries. But this split membership of the organization, according to interviews with 11 current and former members of the Eurovision Committees of the Union.
Sietse Bakker, a television producer who was a representative for the Dutch public broadcaster, said that most members wanted Russia to thrown out of Eurovision. But a minority insisted that this would politicize the competition and lead to debates about the participation of other broadcasters.
Sebastian Sergei Parker, a former Russian TV director who was on the Union’s administration, remembered a senior European Broadcasting Union officer who said that the expulsion of Russia would ‘open a box of Pandora’.
After he initially said that Russia could stay, the union of Tack and Burning it from Eurovisioneven though members suspend. Bakker said he believed that this should not be seen as a political decision, because war was a humanitarian issue that went beyond politics. But since then, activists who want Israel from Eurovision are mentioned as a precedent as a precedent.
Other countries have left Eurovision of their own movement, for reasons that can also be considered political. Turkey has not participated since 2013 and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the show undermines family values By showing gay, transgender and non -this artists. Hungary, whose government has also established LBGT rights, including by Pride -forbidding eventshas not participated since 2019.
Green said that Eurovision did not consider gay or trans artists to be a political act, and that the competition was a place for artists to celebrate their identity on stage, regardless of their race, gender or sexual orientation.
For countries that do not share those values, there can soon be an alternative. According to the Tass State News Agency in Russia, Putin signed a decree In February, a rival song competition from the Cold War promised to breathe new life into Intervision that would now also contain artists from India, China and Brazil. The Russian Ministry of Culture did not respond to a request for more information about the competition, but the existence of two ideologically different pop competitions would only increase the perceptions of Eurovision as a political event.
Green said that the online audience of the competition grew, which showed that the apolitical attitude of the European broadcast Union was the right one. Viewers wanted to enjoy Eurovision ‘for what it is’, he said: a nice singing competition between ’37 countries’. Then he corrected himself: Eurovision was a match between “37 broadcasters”, not, he said. Sometimes even those who work for the union can forget.
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