The EUR 60,000 financial support which the Belgian entry for the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest received from the Flemish Minister of Culture, Bert Anciaux, has been countered with a lot of criticism this week. In a television programme, Anciaux defended the Flemish Community's point of view.
“I believe that this promotion is an important task of the Flemish Community”, Flemish Minister Anciaux starts defending his point of view, “because with Kate Ryan and the winning song Je t'adore, we also partially support the music scene in the Flemish Community in general”.
Small part of the budget
Furthermore, Minister Anciaux declares that the amount of EUR 60,000 is only a small part of the total budget of EUR 3,5 million which is at the disposal of cultural and artistic projects. According to Anciaux, the 'popular music' also deserves a part of this budget and the Eurovision Song Contest is a perfect example of an international festival at which the Flemish presence can be supported.
Hypocrites
“If we would be hypocrites, then we would drop all, then VRT would have had their great shows, everyone would have had fun and we would drop the poor girl for what she is”, Anciaux concluded with a hard statement. However, that's not what he had in mind… Anciaux prefered to contribute to a great project to promote Kate Ryan – an idea of Flemish broadcaster VRT – with a small amount taken from the global budget for Culture of the Flemish Community.
Chart success
Kate Ryan is also the new number one in the Flemish hitparade, Ultratop 50. Kate took over the number one spot of Belle Perez, who finished third in the Eurosong final.
