Nationalism at Eurovision: A Lack of Vision

The inherent retentiveness of conservatism benefits a society because it need not “reinvent the wheel” in “starting from scratch,” as resort can be made to customs that have been efficacious. Unfortunately, conservatism can easily be in denial as to the need for adaptation to changes whether in geopolitical institutions or in culture. The advent of the European Union as a federal system of dual-sovereignty has been easy fodder for conservatism’s proclivity of denial with regard to very new things. Eurovision, too, was an invention beyond even the European Union, and thus also of the post-World-War-II history of integration meant in part as a check on the full-blown nationalism that had twice decimated Europe in the twentieth century. So it is problematic that the EBU, the organization behind the Eurovision Song Contest, has made so many category mistakes involving Europe in favor of nationalism.

The epitome of EBU’s bias and inconsistencies is the decision taken first to ban altogether and then relegate the E.U.’s flag while giving the state flags pride of place on stage, as if Eurovision were a political rather than an entertainment event. It was as if the EBU and the Swiss government were conveniently oblivious to the notion and instantiation of an empire-scale federal system of states. The notion that a person could be a citizen both of a union and one’s own state, and thus be under two flags at once, had been invented by political compromise in 1787. So, it was odd that in 2025, the performers who were E.U. citizens were to be denied the opportunity to show the E.U. flag, whereas bringing along the state flags was permissible.  It was, in effect, to say, you can vote for your representative in the European Parliament, but you cannot hold or wear the E.U. flag under which that parliament is instantiated as a legislative body. This inconsistency is at the very least consistent with the anti-federalist, Euroskeptic political ideology, and thus partisan in nature. Even worse, the decision fuels the sort of nationalism out of which two World Wars had destroyed Europe in the last century.

Even though Switzerland is not an E.U. state, the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation announced in May of 2025 that performers would not be allowed to bring the E.U. flag on the main stage, the turquoise carpet, and even in the green room. In obfuscating the E.U. flag with those of “personal, cultural or regional identity,”[1] the Swiss government was making a category mistake, for to liken the E.U. flag with a gay-rights flag, for example, is to ignore the major difference between a cultural movement and a union that has executive, legislative, and judicial branches at the federal level. Neither was the E.U. “a network,” as David Cameron infamously said of the E.U. when Britain was a state thereof. In fact, Britain seceded in large part in rejection of the fact that governmental sovereignty had already been split between the state and federal levels. 

Lest Euroskeptics raise alarm bells, a federal union can exist in theory and practice without the federal level being recognized as a state internationally, for governmental institutions can indeed exist without constituting a state in the sense of having exclusive competency in foreign affairs. That governmental sovereignty can be divided does not necessarily mean that foreign policy and defense are completely federalized (i.e., E.U. exclusive competencies, or enumerated powers). Yet in terms of government, laws can be passed at both the state and federal level with binding legal force, hence the sovereignty enjoyed at the federal union level by executive, legislative, and judicial branches is distinct from the sovereignty retained by the states.

Therefore, that the “same rule applies to the Rainbow flag” as the E.U. flag “and the Palestinian flag” points to a logical inconsistency founded on a category mistake, but actually founded on a political ideology that is against the European Union.[2] Regarding the Palestinian flag, that Eurovision considered Israel to be European also represents a logical problem, for Israel is a sovereign state occupying Palestine in the Middle East, which is distinct from Europe geographically and culturally.

Furthermore, in refusing to exclude Israel from the competition, Eurovision was in denial, in effect, regarding the fact that the Israeli government had been blocking food and medicine from Gaza for more than a month as the 1.2 million captives in Gaza starved, as if each one had been culpable on October 7, 2023. In fact, on the day after the announcement on the E.U. flag being relegated to the background at Eurovision, essentially putting the state flags in front as if the states were still completely sovereign, Israel’s prime minister announced to the world that “full force” would be mustered against the inhabitants of Gaza.[3]

Also on the day after the Swiss announcement, lest the world of entertainment be assumed to be completely passive in the midst of the exterminating atrocity in Gaza, a “group of more than 350 international actors, directors and producers . . . signed a letter published on the first day of the Cannes Film Festival condemning the killing of Fatma Hassouna, the 25-year-old Palestinian photojournalist and protagonist of the documentary Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk. Hassouna was killed along with 10 relatives in an Israeli air strike on her family home in northern Gaza {in April, 2025}, the day after the documentary was announced as part of the ACID Cannes selection.”[4] The letter pointed to the “shame” in the film industry’s “passivity.”[5] Passivity, as well as shame, can also applied to the EBU of the Eurosong Contest because it ignored a letter yet again in 2025 “calling for Israel to be banned from Eurovision” so the EBU would not be “normalizing and whitewashing” Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.[6] That the EBU had banned Russia even though at least part of Russia is in Europe sheds light on the rule by double-standards at Eurovision.

In such a condition, perhaps no flags at all should have been allowed in the vicinity of the song contest. Why open the door to explicit politics anyway, given that EBU’s handling of the political domain was itself so controversial, and, I contend, impaired even just from the standpoint of logic and consistency? I submit that the ideology of nationalism, which had given the world two major wars in the twentieth century and was allowing Israel to so abuse its national sovereignty, had become too engrained in the song contest. If the history of European integration after World War II, which includes Euroatom and the European Coal and Steel Cooperative, can be interpreted as a series of efforts to check nationalism, then the E.U. flag should be highlighted rather than relegated to the periphery if political flags are to be allowed at an entertainment venue at all, which itself is problematic and seems to incur a category mistake. Should Eurovision be assigned as a political or an entertainment event?  Passivity on even this basic question can be regarded as blameworthy.  

---

1. Jorge Liboreiro, “Eurovision Will Allow European Flag for Fans in the Audience but Not for Artists on Stage,” Euronews.com, May 13, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Gavin Blackburn, “Israeli Military to Continue Gaza Operation ‘With Full Force’ in Next Days, Netanyahu Says,” Euronews.com, May 14, 2025.
4. David Mouriquand, “More than 350 Stars Condemn Gaza ‘Genocide’ in Open Letter in Time for Cannes Opening,” Euronews.com, May 14, 2025.
5. Ibid.
6. David Mouriquand, “Eurovision’s Israel Contestant Yuval Raphael’s ‘Expecting’ Booing During This Year’s Competition,” Eurovision.com, May 13, 2025.

The U.S. Military in Europe: On the Tyranny of the Status Quo

On January 14, 2012, the American media reported that the U.S. Pentagon would bring home two brigades from Europe. That would reduce the U.S. Army presence by 10,000 to 30,000. “During the height of the cold war, when America’s heavily armored and nuclear-tipped force in Europe comforted allies and deterred the Soviet Union, the Army reached a peak of 277,342 troops on the Continent.”[1] A mere 30,000 might seem trite in comparison, and thus palatable, unless it be noticed that the cold war ended with the fall of the USSR. So it is perplexing that the “reductions come as some European leaders and analysts make their case for a sustained American presence on the Continent to deal with uncertainties, including a rambunctious Russia — even as these same NATO allies are unable or unwilling to increase spending for their own defense.”[2] There it is then—a military subsidy of sorts. To be sure, Russia is uneasy about Eastern European countries becoming states in the E.U., but this hardly counts as rambunctiousness—at least at the level justifying a military defense. It is democracy, rather than Europe, that needs defense in terms of Russia, given the hegemony of the United Russia party in Russian politics. As one senior European official said, “We don’t need a massive presence of U.S. troops. After all, we don’t see Russia anymore as an enemy or an adversary, but even as a partner, if a difficult one.”[3] The shift from adversary to ally has perhaps not fully sunk in—human perception being slow to let go of long-held assumptions.

In my opinion, the uncertainty in Europe in the wake of the Pentagon’s announcement involved more than a bit of overreaction. “Philip H. Gordon, the State Department’s assistant secretary for European affairs, already was visiting capitals on the Continent, reassuring an audience in Berlin . . .  that ‘the United States remains committed to a strong Europe, the collective defense of our NATO allies, and to building and maintaining the capacity and partnerships that allow us to work together on a global scale.’”[4] Such reassurance was hardly needed. In fact, it would not be needed were the remaining 30,000 troops pulled out. That would not be tantamount to the United States leaving NATO, after all. Yet strangely, the perception would be exactly that, and in politics perception can create its own effects, even reality.

Beyond the matter of military strategy (in the context of a $15 trillion U.S. Government debt), the fact that the U.S. is leaving 30,000 troops in Europe may itself point to the staying power in the status quo as an object or worship. Beyond lapses in “readjusting,” it may be that the adage, “same old, same old” gets too much air time, particularly given that the twenty-first century is not the twentieth. Thomas Jefferson advocated a new constitution every twenty years, or at least a decision on the matter. It might not be a bad thing were a little “spring cleaning” done  in the first few decades of any new century—rather than simply continuing so much on the books from the last century. The U.S. as protector of Europe is from the standpoint of the twenty-first century so antiquated that a pathological aversion to change can be suspected, with justification itself being presumed to be in the sheer existence of a practice. In other words, it’s always been done that way, so why question it? Under the tyranny of the status quo, layers of old laws and regulations pile up like old clothes in a basement. New clothes are instantly labeled as “extreme” and are therefore eliminated from serious consideration. The inertia of ongoing practices stifle even thought itself and render human experience far too constricted, even regimented. To break on through to the other side, where there is fresh air to breath and room to flex one’s muscles as nature intended, the entire order must have collapsed, and this seems hardly necessary.

1. Tom Shanker and Steven Erlanger, “U.S. Faces New Challenge of Fewer Troops in Europe,” The New York Times, January 13, 2012. 
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.