Uproar in western Europe over the semi-final success of the relative newcomers from the east tastes like sour grapes, writes Karen Fricker
Not for the first time, the Eurovision Song Contest has become a lightning rod for larger political and cultural concerns facing Europe. The current issue is east-west relations, thanks to eastern European countries' increasing dominance of the contest, which became this year's leading Eurovision news story in the dying hours of Thursday night, when every western European country competing in the semi-final at Helsinki's Hartwall Areena failed to advance to the final.
All 10 of this year's semi-finalist qualifiers come from east of the Danube, with a full five from the Balkan region, shutting out numerous songs from western and northern Europe and the Mediterranean, which had scored well in pre-show polls and betting odds. Switzerland's clubby, campy Vampires Are Alive, by one of that country's best-selling pop music artists, DJ Bobo, was perhaps the biggest shock among the relegations - some pollsters had tapped the song to take overall honours tonight. Youth-oriented guitar rock from Andorra, classy Euro-pop from the Netherlands, drag from Denmark, and amped-up Chinoiserie from Malta were all also sent packing.
Some contest insiders - who, uncoincidentally, hail from western Europe - consider Thursday's result evidence of a crisis requiring immediate redress.
Recriminations started as soon as the votes were announced, in the form of booing from the arena's western European-dominated fan section. By early Friday morning, the Eurovision website Esctoday.com was reporting "rising anger" in the Helsinki press centre "at what feels like a fix to many western journalists" and other interested parties. Dominic Smith, head of the UK's Eurovision delegation, says that Thursday's result offers the UK "absolutely no motivation" to relinquish its current automatic qualifying position in the final and enter a proposed semi-final qualification process (a modification to the contest rules that is currently under hot debate - more on that later).
THE HEAD OF press for the Norwegian delegation, whose 2007 contestant Guri Schanke was knocked out of the competition on Thursday, says that this result "sends a warning signal to the western countries". Similarly, a senior figure at the Dutch broadcasting company told Esctoday.com that the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organises the contest, "has to find out what to do about this problem", arguing that, if eastern dominance continues, western countries will start to withdraw from the contest.
According to some comments on Eurovision websites, Eurovision is "dead" and "over" - "ruined by the eastern Europeans". Even with disappointment running high, it's hard not to hear echoes in these complaints of the xenophobia that emerged at the time of EU enlargement in 2004: here come the hordes from Eastern Europe, flooding our systems and warping our culture by bringing theirs with them. In fact, the current interest of eastern countries in Eurovision is part and parcel of larger, changing dynamics within Europe that have led so many people from the former eastern bloc to move west in pursuit of greater economic and career opportunities.
For the first four decades of the contest, Eurovision was an exclusive showcase for the prosperous and dominant west; while the east had its own annual song contest programme, called Intervision, its artists had no access to the mainstream pop music markets that Eurovision success provided. The fall of communism opened the door for eastern participation in Eurovision - an opportunity that has been grabbed with both hands. Every victorious Eurovision country since 2001 has been a first-time winner, including three former Soviet republics (Estonia, Latvia, and Ukraine), two Mediterranean countries (Greece and Turkey), and the current host, Finland, which, though nominally a western European country, suffers from a peripheral-European cultural insecurity complex that seems quite similar to that experienced by Ireland not very long ago.
The implication behind the hostility to this year's semi-final result is that eastern European and former Soviet countries are wielding undue and perhaps even corrupting influence over Eurovision systems (one of the more spectacular internet rumours currently circulating is that Russian mobsters bought out the German company that manages Eurovision's televoting results).
THE REALITY OF the situation, however, is doubtless that eastern countries are now winning because they have an interest in the contest that western Europe currently lacks.
"The Eastern countries are hungry and passionate," says Jan Feddersen, a longtime Eurovision fan and author of Ein Lied kann eine Brücke sein (A Song can Build a Bridge), a book about the contest's history. "I have nothing against Guri Schanke, but her performance in the semi-final was without any passion or heart. I would say the same thing for Portugal, Cyprus, Malta, and Austria this year." This year's non-western songs can hardly be accused of homogeneity: among them are a Hungarian blues number; a futuristic, hypnotic percussion duo from Bulgaria; a majestic Serbian ballad; and, as odds-on favourite to win, a zany sing-along featuring a cross-dressing Ukrainian.
A MAJOR COMPLAINT about recent contests is what is perceived to be politically-motivated vote-swapping between eastern countries, particularly those from the Balkan region. The exact voting statistics from Thursday night will not be released until after tonight's final, but if recent years' contests can be used as a guide, it is indeed probable that many of the Balkan countries did score each others' songs well. But this is not against contest rules, and is surely a result of shared musical and cultural histories and tastes as much as politically-motivated attempts to bring a win to the region.
"There is certainly a western perception that the focus of the contest has shifted too far east," concedes Julian Vignoles, RTÉ's head of delegation for Eurovision, "but that's as much for musical reasons as [ political] voting ones. It would appear that western countries don't vote for each other as much as eastern ones do." Nonetheless, Vignoles feels that changes have to be made to contest rules to "redress the balance" towards the west, in order to "protect Eurovision's good points, and its future". The most recent official word from the EBU is that a two-semi-final system will be instituted in 2009, ostensibly to redress the currently paradoxical and unfair situation that performing in the semi-final statistically gives an act a better chance of winning the final. After Thursday's result, rumours have started to circulate the new system will also involve dividing up the acts so that a certain number of western countries are guaranteed a place in the final, and that this change might come around as early as 2008 in order to keep some western countries from pulling out of the contest altogether.
Asked at Thursday night's semi-final winners' press conference what she thought about the current shift towards "eastern Eurovision", Moldovan singer Natalia Barbu answered simply, "we need a chance, just a chance to be heard" - a reminder of just how new the opportunity for Eurovision success is to non-western countries. Considered from this perspective, the current western attitude has the flavour of sour grapes.