Politics, scandals and fronters of DW-05.2025

The Eurovision Song Contest goes into the home route. The second semi -finals took place on May 15, with the last one planned for Saturday. Out of a total of 37 participating countries, 26 made it into the final.

As the greatest financial contributor from the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) in which the competition takes place, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, France and Spain received an automatic entry into the final, as well as the winner of the previous year.

The other participants are Norway, Luxembourg, Estonia, Israel, Lithuania, Ukraine, Austria, Ireland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Finland, Poland, Greece, Armenia, Malta, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Albania and San Marino.

A total of 160 million viewers from all over the world are expected to post the Basel program at 9 p.m. and vote for their favorite law.

Disturbed start of Eurovision

Before the competition week, the artists gathered from the 37 participating countries last Sunday at the official opening ceremony on the stage of the St. Jakobshalle in Basel, Switzerland. The event should reflect the festive and integrative nature of the competition. But it wasn't clear.

The organizers came up with something special for this year's edition. Instead of running the artists in the presence of accredited journalists and selected fans over a turquoise Eurovision carpet, they organized a parade through the city center.

The participants presented themselves on a turquoise catwalk in front of the town hall and then climbed into vintage cars and retro streams, which they passed along the almost 1.5 kilometer route (approx. 1 mile) via the Rheinbrücke to the event location of the competition for roles, traditional costume groups and carnival clubs over 100,000 spectators.

These spectators who lined the streets held the usual flags of the participating nations and LGBTQ+ Pride flags. However, there were also Palestinian flags and signs that accused the Eurovision of complicity in genocide.

Such protest expressions were triggered by Israel's participation in the song competition. The Israeli artist Yuval Raphael was booed in front of Basel Rathaus, and there were threatening gestures and attempts to stop the tram on which it was located, but no serious incidents.

In contrast to Eurovision in Malmo, Sweden, only a few hundred demonstrators took to the streets, where thousands marched through the city center for several days. The then representative of Israel, Eden Golan, also felt the anger of other Eurovision participants.

Ebu intervenes, but is silent

In order to prevent a repetition of similar incidents this year, Eurovision organizer, the EBU, the necessary artists, members of official delegations and journalists have signed a code of conduct to ensure respectful interaction. One of the central points of this code is the ban on political statements.

“The European song competition respects freedom of expression as a fundamental right. The participants retain their right to freedom outside of the competition,” the document says.

Due to this attitude of the EBU, the article about Raphael avoids a crucial experience in the life of the 24-year-old on the official Eurovision website: The singer survived the Hamas terrorist attack on the Supernova Festival on October 7, 2023 when she was under the bodies of murdered young people for several hours.

Israel's military operation by Gaza in response to the Hamas attacks triggered protests at Eurovision 2024 in Malmo. This year, the Spanish broadcaster RTVE demanded a debate about the participation of the Israeli broadcaster Kan for the first time. According to the official rules for the Eurovision Song Contest, individual radio operators take part in the event and not in the countries in which they are located.

A few days before this year's competition began, more than 70 former participants, musicians and songwriters demanded that Israel should be excluded. They accused the EBU of the double standard because Russia was banished from the competition after it started his war against Ukraine in 2022.

The demand to exclude Israel was later accompanied by the Eurovision winner of last year, Switzerland Nemo.

In response to this, the Eurovision director Martin Green repeated his support for the Israeli station and emphasized that it was not the task of the EBU to compare conflicts. The EBU had the exclusion of the Russia Channel One TV broadcaster and the Rossiya Canal from the Eurovision Song Contest due to the non -compliance with the principles of public broadcasters.

Scandals and leaders

Compared to this debate, the outrage of Gian Marco Centinaio from the Italian populist league party about the Estonian rapper Tommy Cash is nothing more than a storm in a teacup.

In his song “Espresso Macchiato”, Cash makes fun of general Italian clichés and Italians. “I work around the clock, so I sweat like a mafioso” was a line that Centinaio particularly annoyed, and he demanded that the Estonian are excluded from the competition. However, it is unlikely that Estonia will be exposed to sanctions.

The Finnish Trio Kaj, which appears for Sweden, also aims at national self -game synchronization: in the song “Bara Bada Bastu” you have fun with the love of Finns. So far, this folk-pop composition, which is more approaching to the end of the spectrum, is the absolute favorite of the bookmakers. It could only be Sweden's eighth victory in this competition, which would be a record.

Erika Vikman, also from Finland, sings the bombastic “I come”, German for “I come”, which is an allusion to the sexual climax. The organizers of Eurovision have reportedly asked you to make the staging, your costume and choreography a little less sexually suggestive. Will she weaken it?

The twenty-four-year-old Miriana Conte from Malta, on the other hand, was forced to change the title of her R&B style. The original title “Kant”, which means “singing” on Maltese, is a vulgar term for the female sexual organ in English – although written differently. The British broadcaster BBC complained that “servant Kant” was in poor taste for a family show. And so the song is now only called “serving”, although the word “Kant” no longer appears.

The chances of the bookmakers have Contal, Vikman and Cash, who entertain their places among the top 10 favorites before the Eurovision final. But they give the ballad “Maman” of the French singer Louane and “New Day Wille Will” by Israel's Raphael and the Pop -Aria love “Weared Love”, which has appeared by The Cotertenor JJ and represented Austria, the best chances of success.

Eurovision trends in Basel

Germany hopes that the Electro-Pop composition “Baller” of the duo Abor & Tynna, also known as siblings Attila and Bornemisza from Vienna, will be a success.

Germany's transnational cooperation with Austrians reflects a broader Eurovision trend this year: Finns fight for Sweden, a Norwegian for Ireland, a Slovakian for the Czech Republic and an Italian for San Marino – with the title “Tutta l'Italia” (“All of Italy”).

Another special feature of this year's competition is the number of songs that are not listed in English or are only partially applied: more than half of the 37 songs are in other languages.

This article was originally written in German. It was updated on May 16 to reflect the results into the final.