In recent news popular Dutch singer, Anouk (Eurovision 2013, 9th place in the Grand Final with the song “Birds”), stated that she wants to compete again in the Eurovision Song Contest, even as early as in 2025 in Switzerland. She even stated that she has a killer song that would do well in the competition. The Dutch public broadcaster AVROTROS answered by saying that it is not sure whether the Netherlands will be present in the contest of 2025, but will decide on this in upcoming September.
What happened?
It might be subject to opinion, which is normal, but let’s also be honest, the Eurovision Song Contest 2024 was a hot mess, if there ever was one. There were complaints of quite a number of participating countries that they felt “unsafe” during the competition because of statements and acts of the main organizer of the event, the European Broadcasting Union, there was the in-competition disqualification of Dutch representative Joost Klein, and also the participation of Israel in a time of war. Whatever we might think about either of these situations, it all sent a dark shadow over what the Eurovision Song Contest is and stands for, it also was no promotion for the position of Eurovision’s lead, Martin Österdahl. Things went so far sideways in 2024 that the EBU had an independent investigation conducted to indicate what all the problems were, how they came about, and to see where changes could be made. The report about this investigation was believed to be too general for many of the countries that filed a complaint, or at least the public statement of the EBU about the investigation was too general.
The Joost Klein situation
During one of the dress rehearsals of the 2024 Grand Final Dutch participant, Joost Klein, was nowhere to be found when it was his time to rehearse his performance, and the rumour mill started working overtime. Where was he? What happened? Not so long after there was a statement of the EBU and the Dutch national broadcaster, AVROTROS, that Joost Klein was banned from the dress rehearsal because of an “incident” that took place behind the scenes. With this instant there came a lot of uncertainty, because would the ban be for the dress rehearsal only or maybe Joost Klein would be disqualified for the Grand Final all-together. Nobody knew, the Dutch Delegation did not, and the EBU also did not make a decision on the matter. On the day of the Final word came out that Dutch Joost Klein was disqualified from the competition because of an incident during which he was supposedly violent against one of the female members of the Swedish national broadcaster. And there the rumour mill started again, because up to today, nobody knows for sure, except for the people that were there witnessing it, what happened and why it let to a full disqualification of the Netherlands. There are many stories, but until somebody speaks about it publicly we will not know which of these stories is the actual truth.
What now?
The status is that Joost Klein is still waiting for his case to be judged by the Swedish judicial system; the initial plan was for this to happen in June, but we never heard about it again. Did it happen? Did justice prevail? What was the actual story? No word on the matter.
The Netherlands wants the assurance of the EBU that they have actually made changes when it comes down to the treatment of the participants and delegations, is there an unanimous way in which is decided why countries can and cannot compete in certain crisis situations, and needless to say, will there be justice for Joost Klein? This means that the Netherlands is looking into not participating in the contest in Switzerland next year, also to make a statement. This country was the first country ever to perform on the Eurovision stage, they were the first to have a person of colour as their participant (1969), the first to use a mobile microphone (1969), they are the longest winner (because of COVID-19), they had to come up with an alternative show (during the pandemic), they were the first to organize the contest in a global health crisis (2021, COVID-19), and they were the first country to get disqualified “during” the competition; will the Netherlands also become the first country to drop out because of giving up their believe in the grand organizer of the competition? Time will tell…
Correction, Milly Scott (the first coloured singer and microphone holder) represented Netherlands in 1966.
(Incidentally, Lenny Kuhr represented the Netherlands in 1969 playing a guitar as part of her act.)
True that, I got my years confused. Thanks for the heads-up.
I hope we will not participate for at least a couple of years. The Dutch are still very angry about the disqualification and things need to cool down for a while. It is sad that we are alone in this, it seems most of Europe doesn’t really care about the Netherlands at Eurovision or not.
Me, being Dutch myself (Denis Kurris), also think that we have to make a statement, especially because the 2024 was a bit of a mess.