Can Eurovision Avoid Politics in Neutral Switzerland?

At the Eurovision Song Contest, one rule stands above all others: no politics.

That order is enforced by the competition’s organizer, the European Broadcasting Union, an opaque federation of nearly 70 public service broadcasters, based in Geneva. It scrutinizes performers’ lyrics, their outfits and even their stage props in hopes of bringing some Swiss neutrality to the contest and avoiding anything controversial that could spoil the fun.

Yet when the Eurovision final takes place this Saturday on the European Broadcasting Union’s home turf in Basel, Switzerland, politics will still be bubbling in the background, even if the organizers manage to keep such topics off the stage.

At a time when the effects of Israel’s war in Gaza are still rippling through cultural life, and Russia and Belarus are pariahs because of the invasion of Ukraine, the question of who gets to compete in Eurovision brings politics to the fore. And the question of what is actually political can be slippery, and one for which the European Broadcasting Union sometimes lacks a consistent answer.

In recent weeks, broadcasters in Spain, Ireland and Slovenia have called for a debate on Israel’s participation, rehashing a furor that threatened to overshadow last year’s competition. Before the last final, in Malmo, Sweden, some Eurovision performers signed petitions and made statements calling for Israel’s exclusion because of its actions in Gaza. Some crowd members booed Israel’s singer during the final, though others cheered.

Eurovision officials responded with a line that the competition has clung to at previous moments of tension: Eurovision, it said, is a contest between broadcasters, not nations. That means a government’s actions should have no bearing on the contest.