Following Nemo's victory with his song The Code in 2024, the 69th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest was held in Basel, Switzerland on 13, 15 and 17 May 2025 with the participation of 37 countries (the same number as in the previous edition) and this was the third time that Switzerland hosted the contest after the inaugural edition (1956 Lugano) and the one following the well-remembered victory of Celine Dion (1989 Lausanne).

This year, the odds were clearly on Sweden with KAJ's ‘Bara Bada Bastu’ as the favourite to win the crystal microphone and although Eurovision history teaches us that surprises are always possible, nothing seemed to put the Scandinavian trio's victory in jeopardy but, in the end, they finished in fourth position, They were beaten by Estonia's Tommy Cash and his funny ‘Espresso Macchiato’ (third place) and Israel's Yuval Raphael, who rose to second place thanks to the avalanche of points received from the televote, inflated by purely political motivations and spurred on by the support of pro-Israeli groups on the networks. Israel came close to winning and opening a breach of unknown proportions in the increasingly fragile unity of the Eurovision community. In an agonising denouement, Austria, the eventual winner of the jury's vote, won with ‘Wasted Love’ performed by young countertenor Johannes Pietsch (JJ), which like Nemo's ‘The Code’ the previous year combines elements of pop and opera. This was Austria's third victory in the competition. The first was in 1966 with Merci Cherie (Udo Jürgens) aand the second in 2014 with the iconic ‘Rise Like a Phoenix’ (Conchita Wurst).

The contest was once again shrouded in controversy over Israel's participation in the face of the scale of the destruction and indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. However, the noise of the protests both inside and outside the festival grounds was much quieter than the previous edition, and whether it was because of tiredness, impotence or because Swiss neutrality worked a miracle, the festive spirit was felt in the streets of the small city of Basel, which was totally dedicated to the event./p>

See you in Austria in 2026 to celebrate (or not) seventy years of Eurovision history.