The European Commissioner for Intergenerational Justice, Youth, Culture and Sport Glenn Micallef objected to the Eurovision music competition After banning the performers to wave the EU flag. He said that Europeans should not need permission to celebrate their identity. TASR reports this according to the report of Politico portal.
At last year’s event in Malmö, Sweden, it was forbidden to wave the EU flag along with some other flags, which caused a sharp criticism of Brussels. In 2025, the Swiss public broadcasting Company and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) organizing the competition, partially retreated from this request and allowed fans to wave the EU flag. However, this change does not apply to the exchangers.
“The European flag represents our values, our European identity, integration and citizenship for nearly half a billion people,” said Micallef. “If national flags belong to the stage, there is also a European flag,” the commissioner stressed.
On the stage, in the dressing rooms and on the turquoise carpet, where artists are solemnly starting in the Swiss city of Basel, there can be only the flags of the participating countries. The same prohibition applies to other flags, such as the rainbow flag, which was a common part of the competition in the past and is associated with LGBTQi+ community. “Young Europeans should not need permission to wave their flag … If Eba does not allow it on stage, let it become the loudest symbol in the crowd,” He delivered the European Commissioner.
Eurovision has long been described as apolitical, although policy often appears in a competition that is watched by hundreds of millions of viewers around the world. Thousands of protesters gathered in Malmö last year’s finals who waved Palestinian flags. When the Israeli competitor Eden Golan climbed on the stage, she earned an applause from the audience, he recalls Politico. The Gaza War began in October 2023 after the Palestinian militant Hamas movement attacked Israel.
