A British Scottish citizen every 4 years?

It turns out that the UK is divided over Eurovision. Scotland wants to have more influence on the election of UK representatives. Is the Belgian scenario possible there?

England, Great Britain, United Kingdom. These are common terms for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland ( United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland). The country covers most of the archipelago of the British Isles: the entire island Great Britain, the northern part of the island Ireland And many small islands. Administratively, the United Kingdom is divided into two kingdoms (England I Scotland), one emirate (Wales) and one province (northern Ireland).

The UK debuted at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1957, and can be proud of a total of 5 victories and a record runner-up – she has 15 of them. Interestingly, there are events in which the individual countries of which the United Kingdom is part – participated in various constellations:

Olympic Games: All nations compete like Great Britain (GB . team)
world Cup And European Football ChampionshipEngland, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own representations
Rugby World Cup: England, Scotland and Wales compete separately, Ireland (independent country) and Northern Ireland (province of the United Kingdom) are jointly represented
Eurovision ChoirsWales participated in the first edition of this competition in 2017.

The need to represent your country – even if it is part of a larger country – turns out to be so important that sometimes appearing under a common flag may not be enough. Especially when you have reservations about, say, the method for selecting a joint actor or the general approach to a particular event.

He expressed his dissatisfaction with this matter Allen SmithMember of the European Parliament for the Scottish National Party. Disappointed with the BBC’s approach to Eurovision – which, according to one politician, views the competition as a secondary camp rather than a European pop culture holiday like the rest of the continent – called for Scotland to be allowed to send its own representative to Eurovision. . This is not the first such initiative of a Scottish politician. In 2008, he officially approved the campaign Scotland at EurovisionTo send a representative of Scotland to the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow.

Smith presented his latest idea to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which includes 73 public broadcasters from 56 countries and is responsible for organizing the Eurovision competitions. Smith’s proposal is a rotation system, under which each of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom chooses its own representative in the Eurovision Song Contest every 4 years. This format can be found, for example, in Belgium, where the Flemish public broadcaster VRT is responsible for the selection of the representative of Eurovision, alternating with the station Walloon RTBF.

The European Broadcasting Union confirmed that there was nothing to formally prevent UK representatives from being elected under this formula. So, is the problem with the lack of agreement between UK public service broadcasters? BBC is not only a member of EBU, but also S4C (Wales), STV (Scotland) and ITV (the commercial station).

However, the rotation system, in which each country in the UK selects a Eurovision representative every 4 years, may raise controversy, if only because of differences in the number of people living in these countries. In the number over 65 million. Of the population of the United Kingdom, up to 84% of the population is in England. Scotland’s population is 8%, Wales is less than 5%, and Northern Ireland is less than 3% of the total population of the United Kingdom. Is it reasonable, then, that more populous England and less populous Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should elect their representatives on an equal footing?

storehouse Sunday Herald, who reported on Smith’s initiative, asked for a BBC spokesperson’s comment on the matter and received a brief response:

BBC TV is a member of EBU and therefore submits the song to the competition [Eurowizji – przyp. red.] as a representative of the United Kingdom.

In the meantime, it appears that the BBC, which is responsible for selecting Eurovision songs and organiser of British National Selections, is not just limited to artists associated with England. Representing the UK in 2017 Lucy Jones Native to South Wales, just Rhiannon, one of the singers of the trio stone of goldCompete in this year’s final Eurovision: You decide. Perhaps songs submitted by Scottish artists to Eurovision have not been rated highly enough by the BBC’s panel of experts? Or is it simply worth going back to the points system in British selections by region?

Certainly, one should listen to the opinion of the dissatisfied, and their problems may be solved by many. In the meantime, let’s remember the song that will represent the UK in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest: