Basel has been chosen for the grand ball of European music. This large Rhine metropolis in Switzerland will host the 2025 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday, May 17. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), organizer of the competition, announced the news this Friday.
The metropolis of Basel, with its population of around 190,000, is a major centre for chemistry and pharmaceuticals. The headquarters of several of the biggest names in both sectors are located in Switzerland’s third largest city. But Basel is also an important cultural centre with several internationally renowned museums and where thousands of contemporary art enthusiasts and professionals meet every year for the Art Basel event.
It is the victory of the artist Nemo with his autobiographical song The Code which allowed Switzerland to organize the next edition. He also became the first non-binary artist to be crowned in the competition, at the end of a 2024 edition marked above all by threats against the participant from Israel, in the midst of the war in the Gaza Strip. The French candidate, Slimane, came in fourth with My love.
This is the third time that Switzerland has hosted the competition. It had the honour of hosting the first edition of Eurovision in 1956 in Lugano, then in Lausanne in 1989 after the victory of Canadian singer Céline Dion, who had represented it the previous year with Don’t leave without meA victory which propelled the singer to the firmament of song.
Swiss conservatives at war with Eurovision
The Eurovision Song Contest is funded by contributions from member companies of the European Broadcasting Union, which believes that given the economic benefits, the city should contribute to the funding, particularly for security costs.
As is often the case, the question of cost is a matter of debate, but the Swiss particularity of referendums adds to these discussions, with the risk that political parties will oppose them. In this semi-direct democracy, citizens can demand a vote if they obtain the required number of signatures, at the local, cantonal and national levels.
The Federal Democratic Union (UDF), a small party that defends “timeless Christian values”, intends to oppose the credits granted by the candidate cities. This evangelical party, described as ultra-conservative by the Swiss press, accuses Eurovision of “celebrating or at least tolerating Satanism and the occult”, reported the German-speaking television channel SRF, quoting the comments of Samuel Kullmann, its head of political activities. In Geneva, the Young UDC, a radical right-wing party, had opposed the public funding planned for the organization of the contest.