A Eurocrat’s guide to watching the Eurovision Grand Final
From rural areas to local weather change: There’s extra EU coverage on this 12 months’s Eurovision entries than Europapa.
“We love music. That’s what I can say,” mentioned a Fee spokesperson making an attempt to dodge a query earlier this week on whether or not the EU govt has a private favorite for the ultimate.
Even when the Fee hasn’t taken a stand, the competitors entries – which had been watched by greater than 162 million of individuals final 12 months – seem like nodding more and more in the direction of Brussels, with some songs even referring roughly explicitly to the EU.
That is the clearly the case of ‘Europapa’ introduced on the stage by the Dutch singer Joost Klein – an evidently pro-European music that has already gained the hearts of many EU fans.
In his ode to Europe’s integration, Klein praises the liberty of motion enabling him to go to his good friend in France or take a protracted stroll to Vienna with out a passport.
There’s rather more about EU insurance policies than this reference to the Schengen system on this 12 months’s Eurovision, although. Listed below are the Euronews EU coverage crew’s very personal interpretations of the songs you’ll be listening to on Saturday.
The EU’s rural technique
Because the begin of the Eurovision week, Croatia’s entry ‘Rim Tim Tagi Dim’ by Child Lasagna has been a favorite of the bookies who anticipate a simple win for him within the grand finale.
Regardless of a danceable tune, the music lyrics inform the unhappy story of a teen compelled to go away his house in a rural group to hunt his fortune within the metropolis.
“I’m a giant boy now/I’m going away and offered my cow,” sings Child the Croatian, who comes from a distant coastal space.
The phenomenon of rural depopulation is a repeated concern for the Fee, which tried to deal with and reverse it in 2021 launching its long-term imaginative and prescient for the EU’s rural areas that proposed a rural pact and a rural motion plan.
Presenting the agricultural motion plan, Fee vice-president Dubravka Šuica – additionally from Croatia – mentioned that “rural areas are sometimes forgotten however are the beating coronary heart of our societies.”
Laborious on medicine, straightforward on alcohol: EU coverage on threat elements
Estonia’s entry has been already nicknamed “The Drug Track” by followers: its content material lists a number of the most important threat elements of non-communicable illnesses (NCDs) – for which the EU has a selected technique.
In a number of the verses, the Estonian 5MIINUUST x Puuluup appear to be on an analogous web page to the European establishments: strongly condemning use of medicine, whereas sounding somewhat extra emollient on use of alcohol: “I don’t know medicine I do know soda and cider/I wouldn’t inform the distinction between vitamin and velocity.”
“We keep away from medicine simply because we’re not wealthy/Within the backroom of our farm there are solely IPAs on the desk,” the music continues.
The World Well being Organisation (WHO) has criticised the EU for this lax strategy to alcohol, and Estonia’s entry appears unlikely to assist with the trigger.
Psychological Well being
Psychological well being is one other huge matter in music – in addition to for EU coverage.
“Don’t look now/Oh you’ll see me crying rivers I’d drown” and “I don’t wanna lose me so cruelly/I’m drifting out and in of who I’m” are solely a number of the many references Latvian singer Dons make to psychological well being points similar to melancholy in his music Hole.
The lyrics current a deep emotional view on his insecurities, internal demons and emotions. One other bookie’s favorite, Italy’s Angelina Mango laments ennui redolent of the COVID-era: “I die with out dying/In these worn-out days/I stay with out struggling/ no greater cross”.
It’s estimated that round 84 million folks within the EU had been affected by psychological well being issues earlier than the COVID pandemic with virtually half of the bloc’s inhabitants having skilled psychosocial issues.
Whereas dialogue of psychological well being has been a taboo for a few years the EU’s technique goals to normalise speaking about these issues and for it to cease being a so-called “silent pandemic”.
Local weather Change and ocean coverage
Eurovision is hosted this 12 months by Sweden, house of local weather activist Greta Thunberg. In her most well-known speech in Davos, on the 2019 World Financial Discussion board, she used a robust analogy to explain the local weather disaster saying that “our home is on fireplace”.
We are able to see glimpses of this metaphor in ‘Firefighter’, Georgia’s entry this 12 months sung by Nutsa Buzaldze. “The ceiling is falling, the home windows are burning/It’s getting more durable to breathe,” the lyrics learn, inviting the firefighter of the title to “put out the fireplace”.
The bloc’s environmental insurance policies seem to ring a bell with France’s act too, as Slimane guarantees to create “an ocean within the fireplace”.
Although ostensibly concerning the ache of unrequited love – an all-too-familiar staple of Eurovision – is that this a plea concerning the impression of rising world temperatures on marine life?
If there’s a connection between the French singer-songwriter and staffers from the European Fee’s maritime affairs division DG MARE, we’re not conscious of it.