Today the EBU unveiled a series of modifications to the rules of the Eurovision Song Contest for 2018’s competition, due to take place in Lisbon next May.

While the rules do not change the format of Europe’s favourite show, they do tweak some of the specifications regarding the organisation of the event, jury independence, ensuring the apolitical nature of the contest and the criteria selected artists must fulfil.

It’s widely believed that these new rules have been implemented after the Ukrainian broadcaster’s handling of Eurovision 2017. Despite a stellar show in the end, the event’s organisation was far from smooth (anyone remember waiting 3 months for a host city to be announced?!) and things were somewhat overshadowed by Russian entrant Yuliya Samoilova was barred from entering Ukraine by their security forces and Russia’s subsequent withdrawal. As a result, there is now a rule stating that broadcasters

“no selected artist nor any member of the Delegation shall have any antecedents likely to prompt the Host Country’s national authorities to deny them access to the Host Country
in accordance with applicable national law;”

In layman’s terms, the gist of the new rules are:

i) If say you’re going to do something organising the show, then do it!

ii) Don’t drag politics and diplomatic woes in Eurovision!

iii) Don’t do something that’ll (deliberately) upset the host nation!

In principle, a fine set of rules to ensure everyone is happy, no?