{"id":42840,"date":"2026-05-15T10:01:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T10:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/42840\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T10:01:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T10:01:59","slug":"waterloo-and-a-revolution-von-der-leyen-and-costa-pick-their-eurovision-favorites-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/42840\/","title":{"rendered":"Waterloo and a revolution: Von der Leyen and Costa pick their Eurovision favorites \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The song that \u201cmoves me the most,\u201d the German politician went on, \u201cis \u2018<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=VXLWfXmlXPc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Ne partez pas sans moi\u2019 by C\u00e9line Dion<\/a>, which won [for Switzerland] in 1988. What a voice, what emotion.\u201d And, from the more recent entries, \u201cI think the energy in \u2018Euphoria\u2019 by Loreen in 2012 is unmatched!\u201d The song won for Sweden, and Loreen went on to win the contest again in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for European Council President Ant\u00f3nio Costa said that his favorite Eurovision entry is Portugal\u2019s 1974 chanson \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?app=desktop&amp;v=jqd2PD8MXVc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">E depois do adeus<\/a>\u201d by Paulo de Carvalho. While the song failed to win the contest, it became the anthem for the Carnation Revolution just three weeks later, ushering in the country\u2019s democratic transition.<\/p>\n<p>European Parliament President Roberta Metsola and High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas did not respond to a request for their favorite Eurovision songs.<\/p>\n<p>Following the fall of the Iron Curtain, the participation of the Baltic states, Poland and Ukraine in Eurovision has been seen as a symbol of the continent\u2019s unity. Kyiv\u2019s 2016 entry, \u201c1944\u201d by Jamala, won the contest with lyrics in the Crimean Tatar language testifying to the Stalin-era deportation of her great-grandmother from the peninsula, illegally occupied by Russia since 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Eurovision is traditionally marked by parties and viewings hosted by Brussels\u2019 diplomatic corps \u2014 last year, for example, the incoming Danish presidency of the Council of the EU threw a joint reception with the embassy of Switzerland. This year, however, is a more muted affair.<\/p>\n<p>Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Iceland and Slovenia <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/discord-over-israel-splits-eurovision\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">declared they would boycott the competition<\/a>\u00a0over the continued inclusion of Israel, which is represented this year by Noam Bettan. Brussels hosted a \u201cUnited for Palestine\u201d event on Tuesday that was billed as an alternative to Eurovision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The song that \u201cmoves me the most,\u201d the German politician went on, \u201cis \u2018Ne partez pas sans moi\u2019&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20858],"tags":[77,3987,2053,181,88,20859,20860,1533,67,115,116,3240,145,302,6477,146,664,59,106,107,754,16,121,290,108,1491,1196,461,28,63],"class_list":{"0":"post-42840","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eurovision","8":"tag-antonio-costa","9":"tag-baltics","10":"tag-competition","11":"tag-culture","12":"tag-energy","13":"tag-eurovision","14":"tag-eurovision-song-contest-2026","15":"tag-finland","16":"tag-history","17":"tag-human-rights","18":"tag-iceland","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-israel","21":"tag-kaja-kallas","22":"tag-music","23":"tag-palestine","24":"tag-platforms","25":"tag-poland","26":"tag-portugal","27":"tag-rights","28":"tag-roberta-metsola","29":"tag-russia","30":"tag-security","31":"tag-slovenia","32":"tag-spain","33":"tag-sweden","34":"tag-switzerland","35":"tag-the-netherlands","36":"tag-ukraine","37":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}