A very vague paragraph indeed - written like that on purpose - so that it could be applied whenever it seemed proper and ignored whenever there was a reason to do so.
For instance, Australia were allowed to mention the FaceTime app once in 2016 while San Marino was not allowed to repeat "Facebook" thirty times back in 2012. I'm onboard with that.
The "no politics"-rule came in handy in 2009, as the EBU suspected Georgia's entry - the funky disco stomper "We Don't Wanna Put In" - might hold some level of political messaging. (They were not wrong, you know.)
Anyhow, the EBU did not want this entry performed in Moscow and told Georgia they could either change the lyrics or stay home. The Georgian broadcaster opted for the latter alternative.
After that one occasion, the EBU has been very reluctant to play the politics card and for instance let "1944" pass - easily one of the most political entries ever.
"No political messages" had turned into a rubber paragraph: very flexible and more of a subtle threat than anything else. Then came the 2022 war in Ukraine, Russia was thrown out of the EBU and for the 2023 edition we stand here with a number of songs containing references to this war (or war in general).
Croatia is easily the entry pushing the envelope the furthest. It's not even a question of interpretation, the band themselves have stated how the song is about dictators and more precisely about Lukashenko buying Putin a tractor as a birthday gift. The lyrics also calls said dictators "psychopaths".
This is very clearly a case of a highly political message. If you paid attention to the beginning of this blog post, you will know that the EBU has a rule that prohibits all kinds of political messages in the Eurovision Song Contest. But the Croatian entry was still given the green light.
Personally, I think the Croatian dad punk rockers give us a refreshing moment but they also lampshade how toothless this "no politics"-rule really is. Why wasn't it applied here?
Maybe because other countries have similar messages, presented in subtler ways. Czechia obviously sing about the same thing, Switzerland does too (in an annoyingly general way, but still). Latvia is possibly alluding to it as well between the lines. If the EBU employed its famous rule, then they would have to police what expression is acceptable and what isn't. I see why that would be problematic.
Maybe it is because the bottom line of protesting the war in Ukraine (as well as violent regimes) is not a controversial stance to take. But if the rule reads "no political messages unless it is one we can agree with or doesn't create inconvenience for us", then that is even more problematic.
Who should be the judge of what political message is acceptable or not? That sounds like a very slippery slope to me.
My suggestion would be to revise the rule for upcoming contests. Cut everything about forbidden messages out but keep that one central thing: "No entry may bring the contest into disrepute and the reference group alone will decide for each individual case what that means." That would be more honest at least. Different years and different circumstances could demand different levels of scrutiny.
There is absolutely no point in keeping a rule that obviously means nothing and that nobody has to pay attention to anyway.
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