How Austria’s embrace of the far right could fracture the EU centre
Far right rises
Austria’s far-right Freedom party (FPÖ) appears to be on a glide path to the country’s chancellery, after negotiations among centrist parties collapsed and the moderate conservative People’s party (ÖVP) said it was open to coalition talks.
Any deal would mark the latest major victory for Europe’s far right, and put intense scrutiny on the stance of the EU’s centre-right towards engaging with extremist political groups.
Context: The Eurosceptic, pro-Russia, anti-immigration FPÖ won almost 29 per cent of September’s election, the highest share of the vote. Other parties, including the ÖVP, ruled out working with them and tried to cobble together an alternative coalition. Those talks collapsed on Saturday, with Karl Nehammer resigning as chancellor and stepping down as ÖVP leader.
Nehammer’s appointed replacement Christian Stocker abandoned the party’s cordon sanitaire approach, saying yesterday he was willing to negotiate with the FPÖ. FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl will meet Austria’s president Alexander Van der Bellen today.
Should Stocker strike a deal to become the far-right party’s junior partner, he would put one of the EU’s most uncompromising politicians at the helm of a national government and give him a seat around the EU’s 27-leader council.
Kickl has stark pro-Russian views, has embraced Covid-19 pandemic conspiracy theories and made unsavoury flirtations with Austria’s Nazi past.
Aside from significantly boosting efforts to overturn EU support to Ukraine, sanctions against Russia and existing immigration policies, it would also shine a spotlight on the centre-right European People’s party’s stance towards working with far-right parties.
The EPP, of which the ÖVP is a member, is the largest political group in the European parliament. Its member parties in Germany and Poland are battling far-right rivals in critical national elections this spring, and the party is already under heavy criticism from the assembly’s socialist and liberal groups for teaming up with hard-right groups to win votes.
Stocker may feel he has no choice. A survey released by Austrian tabloid Kronen Zeitung yesterday suggested that if a fresh snap election was called, the FPÖ could poll as high as 37 per cent, with the once dominant ÖVP falling to 21 per cent.