The European Commission has expressed anger over a ban on EU flags at the Eurovision Song Contest and demands explanations.
The allegations, made by several spectators who attended the Grand Final on Saturday and were told off for carrying the flags, quickly turned viral and prompted a stern rebuke from Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas.
“Eurovision is first and foremost a celebration of European spirit, of our European diversity and talent. The EU flag is a symbol of this,” Schinas said on X on Saturday evening.
“Less than a month to the European elections, there should be no obstacles, big or small, to celebrating what unites all Europeans.”
Not all participants are in the EU. Strictly-speaking, you can maybe argue that the identical flag also applies to most non-EU members as the Flag of Europe, given that pretty much everyone is in the Council of Europe, but it probably still won’t cover Australia.
That being said, I mean, I don’t really see the problem of someone holding the EU flag if they can hold their national flag. I mean, a flag doesn’t have to apply to everyone.
Besides, the thing is “Eurovision” already, not “Euroaustraliovision”. If you want the venue to be some sort of generic thing decoupled from Europe, you’ve already done the branding wrong in rather more-significant ways.
can you think of any other countries that the EU flag wouldn’t represent who were getting boo’d and are also home to Eurovision’s biggest corporate sponsor?
I don’t know what you’re referring to, but if it’s the UK, you’ve got the Flag of Europe-also-represents-the-Council-of-Europe case, and the UK is in that.
I guess Belarus isn’t in the Council of Europe. And Russia is either out or suspended or something. I don’t know what the situation is with them, but apparently they both also got kicked out of Eurovision, so kind of an academic question.
EDIT: Yeah, Russia is out of the Council of Europe.
ISRAEL dude, fucking ISRAEL. Moroccan Oil is an Israeli company
Ah, fair enough. And speaking of Moroccan Oil, looking at Wikipedia, Morocco has apparently also competed, and also isn’t in the Council of Europe or European Union:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurovision_Song_Contest
sure thing, but Morrocan Oil is an Israeli company thats a massive sponsor of the Eurovish
Really the only requirement for Eurovision is to be part of the European Broadcasting Union, which extends out of Europe. Hence the inclusion of countries like Israel, Azerbaijan, and even Australia.
Australia is an associated member, same status as the US, any ITU member can be one.
They’re special-cased for the contest because they’ve been watching the thing religiously for decades. And I’m deeply disappointed that they never flipped their vote presenter upside-down.
Moroccanoil is an israeli company. The connection to Morocco is that they co-opted a Moroccan product and sell it under their name. There’s no reason to believe that their sponsorship would influence a potential Moroccan entrant.
None of the southern Mediterranean states are in the CoE, the EBU has a larger catchment area than the CoE: E.g. Morocco is a founding member. There’s the UfM, that one could get a flag and flying the flag of the African Union should also be perfectly acceptable.