Hello, Helsinki

Never let it be said that the European Commission misses an opportunity to jump on a bandwagon. Its department for employment and social affairs proudly proclaimed this week a tie-up with Eurovision, boasting that “for the first time in almost 20 years an official European Union initiative will be associated with this international music competition”. Apparently this means that it will have a stand at the Eurovision village in Helsinki (5-12 May), promoting the European Year of Equal Opportunities to passers-by and 2,000 journalists. Whether the Eurovision contest actually promotes equal opportunities is another matter, now that the voting is marred by regional cartels in the Balkans and the Baltics. Then again, a contest that was won in 1998 by Dana International (pictured), a transsexual Israeli, does send an equal opportunities message of some sort.
Presumably the Commission will be hoping that the 2007 winner proclaims a message along the lines of “All Kinds of Everything” (the 1970 winner performed by Dana, later MEP Rosemary Scallon) rather than the more discriminatory “Save your kisses for me” (1976, Brotherhood of Man – a bit sexist that).