Photo: Eurovision.tv
Fraser Nelson on the Spectator’s Coffee House blog offers an interesting thought. Clearly favouring the mechanics of the song contest to the political union, he ponders on whether we’d all be better off if Eurovision ran Europe.
“Eurovision has coped with the Soviet breakup and EU expansion far better than the EU itself has. It has a UN-style council of permanent members: the UK, France, Germany and Spain who are guaranteed to qualify. while the remaining 40 battle it out. And by letting 50% of the votes come from the public, it has introduced a level of participatory democracy that Brussels could never stomach. Putin treated this like the Olympics, spending £35m on the whole event (the Russian entry was so bad that it looked to me like a deliberate attempt not to win again, and bear the costs again). The whole event showed the best and the worst of Europe - Ukraine’s entry looked like an advert for its sex industry, Denmark’s entry was a hilarious - a guy pretending to be Ronan Keating. Greece gave us the kind of guy who British girls spend holidays in Corfu trying to avoid, and Britain provided a girl who could sing - which is a change from recent years. All told, if Eurovision were to take over the running of the EU (ie, no vetos and a high level of public voting) then I suspect things would be far healthier in Brussels.”
Nelson concludes that “all told, if Eurovision were to take over the running of the EU (ie, no vetos and a high level of public voting) then I suspect things would be far healthier in Brussels.” They’d certainly be substantially more fun.
(5 votes, average: 4.20 out of 5)
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ha, ha, awesome (was nodding at some descriptions of the artists), the only thing is that the quality of eurovison is every year worse and worse….but voting is still funny
So, does he suggest a singing competition of MEP candidates and the public votes for them afterwards?
THAT would be fun, THAT would indeed hit high scores of voters participation!