Basel Will Host Eurovision Song Contest (Unless Its Taxpayers Revolt)

[Pelican Press 0]

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Basel Will Host Eurovision Song Contest (Unless Its Taxpayers Revolt)

Switzerland had won the right to host Eurovision after Nemo, a Swiss singer, triumphed at this year’s event with “The Code,” a catchy track in which the nonbinary performer sang and rapped about their journey to realizing their gender identity.

Ever since, there has been hand-wringing in the Swiss news media over the potential cost of staging the weeklong event. Kullmann said his party would prefer that cities cut taxes rather than spend money on TV shows.

Some lawmakers from larger right-leaning parties have backed the Federal Democratic Union campaign, including members of the center-right Swiss People’s Party, which has the most members in the Swiss Parliament. However, Pascal Messerli, that party’s president in Basel, said in an email Friday that he would not campaign for a referendum over Eurovision. Party members want the competition in Basel because it will bring tourists to the city, he said.

In July, when Basel was campaigning to become the host, the editor in chief of the city’s main newspaper, Marcel Rohr,

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that the debate over the issue was “brimming with small-mindedness.” Eurovision is a huge opportunity for Basel, he said. “There could not be any better advertisement for a Swiss city in 2025,” he added.

And even if a referendum looks unlikely to succeed, Eurovision’s organizers are not ignoring the threat. Edi Estermann, a spokesman for SRG SSR, the Swiss national broadcaster that will produce the show, said that the referendum campaign “brings with it a certain amount of planning uncertainty.”

If the campaign to prevent government funding were to succeed, he added, next year’s Eurovision party “would have to be greatly reduced.”

Still, Estermann said, many of the referendum supporters’ complaints about what happens onstage did not hold weight, such as accusations of Satanism. “These performances should not always be taken so seriously,” he said.

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