The canton of Basel-Stadt in northern Switzerland will have to organize a referendum in November on hosting Eurovision 2025, as opponents submitted enough signatures on Saturday.
The victory of Swiss singer Nemo, a non-binary activist, at Eurovision 2024 gave Switzerland the right to host the world’s largest song contest next May.
In August, Basel was preferred to Geneva, in a country where voters are accustomed to having direct oversight over the use of public funds.
4,203 signatures
The Federal Democratic Union (UDF), a small party that defends “eternal Christian values”, declared at the end of August on the social network X that it wanted to launch a referendum against the credits granted by Basel.
The competition is financed by contributions from member companies of the European Broadcasting Union, which ask the organizers to contribute 37.5 million Swiss francs (approximately the same amount in euros) to the costs.
Described as ultra-conservative by the Swiss press, the UDF party criticizes Eurovision for being “a propaganda event” especially for the LGBT+ community and accuses it of making anti-Semitism “acceptable”, following protests against the presence of Israel this year. but also satanism in reference to Bambie Thug’s performance for Ireland.
On Saturday he appeared at the Basel City Hall with 4,203 signatures (more than double the number required) supporting his referendum petition. The regional government has yet to verify the authenticity of these signatures, but there should be enough valid ones to put the issue to a vote on November 24, the next election day.
Without the support of other parties
UDF President Daniel Frischknecht said on Saturday that the canton could find much better ways to spend its money, the Keystone-ATS news agency reported.
The party insisted it had nothing against the music or the sexual orientation of the participants, but maintained that Eurovision was pushing a political ideology.
The UDF cannot expect to gain much support from other political parties in Basel, since the budget for hosting Eurovision was approved by an overwhelming majority in the cantonal parliament in September, and even the radical right UDC, which it had criticized at the time, is joined him. the competition in other candidate cities.
Switzerland hosted Eurovision in 1956 in Lugano (the first edition) and then in 1989 in Lausanne, after the victory the previous year of the Canadian singer Céline Dion, who represented the Alpine country.
Source: BFM TV
