“Why does not Germany boycott “Eurovision 2012?”: opinion

Tomorrow, on May 22, the first semi final of the “Eurovision 2012” song contest will take place in Baku. Many international organizations called on to boycott it as the human rights situation is terrible in this state. According to the reports many people have stayed without their flats as the houses were destroyed in order to build a complex for the song contest. Besides this, Azerbaijan did not guarantee for the security of the participants and Belgian journalists have already suffered in this state. By the way they have left Azerbaijan after they were beaten in Baku: they arrived for the “Eurovision 2012”.

“After discussions in Germany about boycotting the European Football Championship, there is no encouragement, to act the same way with Baku. Why is that so? First of all, the case Timoschenko is just a possibility for German politicians to sharpen their human rights profile without any economic risks.

Germany is not dependent any more on Ukraine as a gas transit nation, because of the northstream project in the Baltic Sea“, Mark Hokamp, young researcher from Germany, writes.

“Compared with that, Azerbaijan is one of the upcoming energy producing and transit power nations.

Especially for Germany, that tries to find a balance between a strong bilateral relationship with Russia and other energy suppliers, is it important to have good relationships with Azerbaijan”, he considers.

“Human rights are as usual just a question of the partner Europe works to get her with.

Even the German commissioner for human rights Markus Löning is against discussions about a boycott, as he said to the German homepage eurovision.de“, Hokamp concludes.

Anyway, despite of the all applications and calls to pay attention on the human rights’ violations in Azerbaijan and to boycott “Eurovision 2012”, the contest will take place in Baku.