Jim O'Neill, Columnist

An Austrian Drag Queen Shows How Europe Can Work

Like hundreds of millions of others, I watched the hilarious Eurovision Song Contest Saturday, in its 59th year.

May 11, 2014 at 11:46 PM UTC

Jim O'Neill worked for Goldman Sachs Group Inc. from 1995 until 2013, serving most recently as chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and as the firm's chief economist from 2001 to 2011. Before joining Goldman Sachs, he was head of global research at Swiss Bank Corp. O'Neill is the creator of the BRIC acronym, which was derived from his thesis that Brazil, Russia, India and China would dominate growth in emerging markets. He is a member of the boards of the Brussels-based policy-research centers Itinera Institute and Bruegel. He earned a degree in economics from Sheffield University in 1978 and a doctorate from the University of Surrey in 1982. He lives in London.

It's not over until the bearded drag queen sings. Conchita Wurst attends a May 11 press conference after winning the Eurovision Song Contest 2014. Photographer: Moni Fellner/Getty Images — It's not over until the bearded drag queen sings. Conchita Wurst attends a May 11 press conference after winning the Eurovision Song Contest 2014. Photographer: Moni Fellner/Getty Images

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Like hundreds of millions of others, I watched the hilarious Eurovision Song Contest Saturday, in its 59th year. For those of blissfully unaware of this “competition,” any country with vague connections to Europe offers up a rather ridiculous song, usually with some cheesy stage performance. This year's trophy was won for Austria by a bearded drag queen.

The show has taken on the sort of compulsive viewing that I imagine regular TV game shows such as "X Factor" would love to have. Saturday’s “final” featured 26 countries, including Russia and Ukraine, along with a number of other ex-Soviet states. The voting is always heavily gamed; countries give maximum votes to their neighbors and friends, with little regard for the quality of the songs. (In fact, the word "quality" probably shouldn't be used at all here.) This has been especially true for ex-Soviet countries. What was remarkable this year, in view of matters in Ukraine, was that Ukraine and Russia each gave the other some votes, and while there was quite a lot of booing when Russia voted or some country gave Russia a lot of votes, it was all undertaken in the jolliest of spirits.