ESC Etc.

The Malmö Public Prosecutor’s Office has officially closed the investigation on Joost Klein and the accident that led to his disqualification before the ESC final on May 11. The investigation was dropped and no charges were pressed due to lack of…uh…anything of note actually having happened? A statement released by Fredrik Jönsson, a senior prosecutor involved in the investigation, says:

“Today I have closed the investigation because I cannot prove that the deed was capable of causing serious fear or that the man had any such intention.“

To recap the events that led to the disqualification to the best of my knowledge:

• Before the Dutch semifinal performance (possibly before the delegation’s arrival) Joost (the Dutch act) and AVROTROS (the Dutch broadcaster in charge of Joost’s participation) ask the EBU to make sure SVT (the Swedish broadcaster producing the show) would not have anyone backstage filming Joost to protect his privacy and well-being. The EBU agrees to this request.
• Following Joost‘s semifinal performance, an SVT camerawoman is present backstage filming Joost in direct violation of said agreement. She is asked multiple times to stop. For reasons that have remained unclear, she refuses to do so.
• Joost then proceeds to push the camera away from his face. He promptly apologizes.
• The police are called. The EBU releases a statement that Joost was involved in “an incident with a female staff member” and that, “after an internal investigation” they have decided to disqualify Joost for “breaching ESC rules and procedures.”

Following the news about the investigation being dropped, AVROTROS has now published a rather scathing press release, and the EBU further clarified in an official statement that they do not believe they did anything wrong. It seems as though meetings are to be held imminently to try and sort out this mess.

Now – no charges being pressed does not mean nothing happened. The Swedish police confirmed that Joost did push the camera away from his face. However, the prosecutor’s statement clearly explains that there was not enough evidence to determine threatening intent nor action. What AVROTROS keeps litigating is whether the disqualification itself was warranted as opposed to, say…a fine or an official warning. It doesn’t help that the EBU continues to be incredibly cagey about how they came to this drastic determination, which rules and procedures were breached, and how their own internal investigation was conducted in support of it. Even more damningly, nowhere in any of their statements does the EBU acknowledge that they also breached agreed-upon procedures by allowing a camerawoman backstage to film Joost after having confirmed to all parties involved that this would not happen. It is very unlikely that this person just decided to go rogue after having been given clear instructions – it is more likely to assume that the EBU failed to properly communicate those instructions to SVT and their crew in the first place. So…why didn’t they?

It is exactly the fact that this question is not being asked out loud that allows the EBU to keep evading it. The catalyst for the events that led to the disqualification is the fact that the EBU reneged on or failed to enforce a bilateral agreement to safeguard a contestant’s privacy and well-being. Was this at all considered as part of their own internal investigation? It just seems to me that rushing out a press release divorcing the police investigation from the decision to disqualify Joost is a very disingenuous move, and a poorly worded one at that:

“This was an investigation into whether a criminal act was committed and not whether Mr Klein behaved inappropriately and breached ESC rules and procedures. This new development therefore does not have any impact on our decision which we stand by completely.” We know now (and let’s be honest, everyone knew all along) that no criminal act was ever committed, so the EBU is now effectively saying that the disqualification was solely in response to “inappropriate behavior” without defining the term “inappropriate” or specifying the rules and procedures it violated. This also directly contradicts the wording in the EBU press release announcing Joost’s DQ back in May, which stated:

“[…] given the circumstances of what occurred and the fact that the police case will shortly be handed to the prosecutor, it would not have been appropriate for Joost to participate in the Grand Final.”

Again, no word on how allowing someone to be filmed against their own wishes and agreed-upon stipulations is “appropriate” instead. I could not find anything that speaks to the specifics of this accident on the page outlining the official rules of the 2024 contest on the Eurovision website but, interestingly enough, I stumbled upon this stipulation in the ESC Title and Values section:

“The Participating Broadcasters shall at all times respect the EBU and the ESC Values and take all steps to protect the integrity of the ESC and of the Shows. They shall ensure that no contestant, delegation or country is discriminated and/or ridiculed in any manner.”

There is no language in there otherwise describing how a contestant’s behavior might be classified as inappropriate, especially when they are ostensibly being harassed by an employee of the producing broadcaster in direct violation of an agreement the EBU undersigned (how likely is that to happen, right?! Well…oops!), but the only meaningful language present in that section states that participating broadcasters cannot discriminate against and/or ridicule their competition. We heard that multiple delegations, including Ireland and the Netherlands, as well as numerous journalists, filed complaints against the same country’s broadcaster (KAN) and their delegation during the contest, alleging that they were being harassed on and off the premises, and the EBU elected to do nothing about it. This broadcaster’s delegation secretly filmed Joost and uploaded videos on social media with the express intent of ridiculing him; this broadcaster openly told viewers not to vote for the Irish entry as they were on stage performing during the telecast. None of this was determined to be inappropriate behavior, even if it directly contradicts language in the contest’s official rules; Joost pushing a camera away in an attempt to protect himself was instead determined to be grounds for a DQ, even if no language in the rules directly supports this decision. The EBU keeps denying any responsibility/accountability in the handling of these accidents.

So…now what? AVROTROS stated their intention to meet with the EBU as soon as possible to unscramble this whole mess. This disqualification had massive financial repercussions, as well: in 2022, AVROTROS explained that participation cost them around €500K. Of that total, €250K is paid by NPO (the Dutch Public Broadcasting) to the EBU in exchange for broadcasting rights for the three live shows (NPO gets money from public funding which means that taxpayers are essentially footing half of the bill). The other €250K is paid by AVROTROS. The money comes from membership fees to the broadcaster and revenue from the broadcaster’s TV Guide Avrobode (the source is RTL Nieuws.) The only path forward I see at the moment is some sort of apology from the EBU, paired with the dismissal of Martin Österdahl (scapegoat or not, ultimately he was the guy in charge when the shit hit the fan) and one of two scenarios – fast-tracking the Netherlands to the finals in 2025 or waving their fees entirely.

How likely is any of that to happen? Not at all. Stay tuned!