Eurovision 2025: the Swiss will have to vote on hosting the competition in Basel

The canton of Basel-City, in the north of Switzerland, will have to organize a referendum in November on the hosting of Eurovision 2025, opponents having presented 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.

A critique of Eurovision values

The Federal Democratic Union (UDF), a small party which defends “timeless Christian values”, declared at the end of August on the social network X that it wanted to launch a referendum against the credits provided by Basel.

The competition is financed by contributions from member companies of the European Broadcasting Union, which ask the organizers to contribute to the costs, to the tune of 37.5 million Swiss francs (approximately the same amount in euros).

Described as ultra-conservative by the Swiss press, the UDF party criticizes Eurovision for being “a propaganda event” particularly for the LGBT + community and accuses it of making anti-Semitism “acceptable”, after the lifting of shields against the presence of Israel this year, but also Satanism in reference to Bambie Thug’s performance for Ireland.

An a priori vote scheduled for November 24

The UFD showed up at Basel City Hall on Saturday with 4,203 signatures – more than double the required number – supporting its referendum request. 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.

UDF President Daniel Frischknecht said on Saturday that the canton could find much better ways to spend its money, according to the Keystone-ATS news agency. The party insisted it had nothing against the music, nor the sexual orientation of participants, but maintained Eurovision was pushing a political ideology.

The UDF cannot hope to garner much support from other political parties in Basel, with the budget for hosting Eurovision having been approved by an overwhelming majority in the cantonal parliament in September, with even the radical right UDC rallying behind it then. that she had criticized the competition in other candidate cities.

Switzerland hosted Eurovision in 1956 in Lugano – the first edition – then in 1989 in Lausanne following the victory the previous year of Canadian singer Céline Dion, who represented the Alpine country. In 2024, the semi-finals and final broadcast live brought together 163 million people, according to the organizers.