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EU institutions, on Thursday (1 April), unveiled a first-ever and immediately controversial entry into the Eurovision Song Contest to be held in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, in May.
The song, called ‘The EU is Alive’, is a pop-homage to a hit from the 1965 musical The Sound of Music.
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Belgian ventriloquist and EU commissioner Didier Reynders (Photo: ec.europa.eu)
It is being added to a line-up of 39 national semi-finalists for the first time in the event’s 65-year history to boost European morale in the third wave of the pandemic.
“In a period of anxiety, for me, it is clear – the EU needs to show citizens we care about more than just vaccines, more than just coping,” European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement.
“We need to build a European Groove Union”, she said.
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), a Swiss-based association which runs the event, noted that it had “carefully scrutinised the EU entry”.
And “the new submission was found not to be in breach of rules to protect the high integrity and dignity of the contest,” it said.
‘Eurovision’ also has other unorthodox entries from as far afield as Israel and Australia, under complex rules.
But issues of technical eligibility aside, the EU song has stirred political controversy after Britain and Russia complained, in strident terms, about its content.
The EU song begins: “The EU is alive, with the sound of Europe”.
Its lyrics go on to say: “The European way of life, is the life to live”.
And for the UK, that was “hardcore EU pornoganda,” a British foreign office spokesman told EUobserver.
While for the Russian foreign ministry, the EU song was “an act of cultural warfare” designed to “narcotise Russians via propagating parallelonormal realities,” its spokeswoman tweeted.
The 2021 song contest is no stranger to scandal, after having kicked out Belarus over its pro-regime song last weekend.
Called ‘I Will Teach You’, it contained lyrics such as “I will teach you to toe the line” – deemed a scantily-veiled threat by its brutal president against pro-democracy protesters.
Meanwhile, the EU entry is to be performed by baritone Greek crooner and ‘European way of life’ commissioner Margaritis Schinas.
It includes a cameo act by Belgian amateur ventriloquist and EU ‘justice’ commissioner Didier Reynders.
And its lavish, Alpine-themed production opens with von der Leyen cantering through a green valley in a blue-and-gold dirndl, with her arms outstretched “to embrace Europeans in every way”.
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