The Albany Gazette - Basel backs splashing the bucks to host Eurovision

Intermediate results showed 66.4 percent of voters in the Swiss city backed putting taxpayers' cash into staging Eurovision 2025.

Swiss singer Nemo won Eurovision 2024 with "The Code", giving Switzerland the right to host next year's 69th edition. Basel, on the northern border with France and Germany, was selected to stage the kitsch event.

But the small, ultra-conservative, Christian fundamentalist Federal Democratic Union of Switzerland (EDU) party garnered enough signatures to secure a referendum on whether the 34.96 million Swiss francs ($39.5 million) approved by regional authorities for the show should be granted.

EDU board member Philippe Karoubi said the competition had become "completely instrumentalised to promote ideologies" like "wokeism" and trans rights.

He slammed the contest for staging what he called "blasphemous performances", some verging on "the occult".

Swiss voters are used to having a direct say on how taxes are spent, and some bristled at the potential costs and hassle of the Eurovision circus.

Eurovision is a non-profit event, mostly financed by weighted contributions from participating public service broadcasters.

However, Eurovision says that "given the benefits that will flow" to host cities, they must also make a contribution.

Based on the last two contests in Liverpool and Malmo, Basel hopes to make about 60 million Swiss francs from the event, in particular in tourism and hospitality.

The contest will be staged at the St. Jakobshalle indoor arena, with semi-finals set for May 13 and 15, while the final is to take place on May 17.

Fans without golden tickets for the arena will be able to flock to the 40,000-capacity St. Jakob-Park football stadium across the street to watch the final on a giant screen, and see performances by former Eurovision stars.

Meanwhile the Steinenvorstadt district, known for its bars and cinemas, will be transformed into "Eurovision Street".

Had voters rejected granting the money, Eurovision 2025 would have been scaled right back to just the show itself, with no public events outside the main venue.

- Motorways -

Across Switzerland, national votes also took place on whether to expand the country's motorways at key congestion points, and give greater powers to landlords.

With the vote counting complete in all 26 cantons except Bern, voters seemed set to reject the proposals by narrow margins.

Fifty-two percent had voted against plans to widen sections of the A1 motorway, and build tunnels in St. Gallen and Schaffhausen and under the Rhine in Basel.

The government and the parliament wanted to ease bottlenecks on six motorway stretches, with the volume of traffic having doubled since 1990.

The projects were estimated to cost 4.9 billion Swiss francs ($5.5 billion).

The Green Party called it a huge victory against an outdated transport policy, and said the money should instead be used for climate protection.

"Traffic is one of the main causes of carbon dioxide emissions and plays a direct role in global warming, such as heat, drought and flooding," lawmaker Delphine Klopfenstein Broggini said in a statement.

"This money must be invested in protection against the consequences of global warming, particularly in mountain regions."

Pierre-Andre Page, a lawmaker with the hard-right Swiss People's Party, said he was "shocked" by the results.

"We will soon have 10 million inhabitants. And these bottlenecks will increase further," he told RTS television.

The Swiss also seemed on course to reject two separate projects aimed at giving landlords more flexibility, one on terminating leases (by 53 percent) and the other on limiting sub-letting (by 51 percent).

Nearly 60 percent of people in Switzerland are tenants.

(P.Clark--TAG)