Swiss conservatives oppose using public funds to host Eurovision

Swiss conservatives are moving to block the use of taxpayers' money to put up the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest just two months after Swiss rapper Nemo walked off with the top prize.

"The Eurovision Song Contest is an appalling propaganda occasion," the Federal Democratic Union of Switzerland (EDU), a minority national-conservative political party with a largely Protestant base, posted on X on Thursday.

The EDU is seeking referendums on whether public funds can be used in the cities that have applied to host the contest. The party will have to secure 2,000 signatures in each case to force a referendum.

The competition is held each year in the country that won the previous year's contest. In May, Swiss singer Nemo won in Mälmo, Sweden.

"I believe that there is criticism from these circles on account of the perception of this as a queer event," Zurich political scientist Thomas Widmer told German-language broadcaster SRF.

Nemo bills themselves as "non-binary" and backs allowing non-binary people to be registered as such in official documents. Non-binary people do not see themselves represented in the categories "woman" or "man."

"At the national level, these progressive movements, the queer movement for example, can call many certainties of national understanding into question, and for that reason there are tensions," Widmer said.

While the EDU has just two delegates in the National Council, the Swiss lower house, other organizations, including the taxpayers' association and the national-conservative Swiss People's Party (SVP), which has 62 seats in the 200-member house, have also come out against the Eurovision competition.

Geneva, Basel, Zurich and Bern are competing to hold the contest, with Bern aiming to host in cooperation with Nemo's home town of Biel, some 40 kilometres north-west of the Swiss capital. All the municipalities are offering financial assistance, but are also counting on a boost to the local economy.

A decision is to be taken at the end of August, and the event is scheduled for May of next year.