{"id":210682,"date":"2025-01-08T14:15:07","date_gmt":"2025-01-08T14:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/08\/a-far-right-government-in-austria-would-be-a-jolt-but-not-unexpected\/"},"modified":"2025-01-08T14:15:07","modified_gmt":"2025-01-08T14:15:07","slug":"a-far-right-government-in-austria-would-be-a-jolt-but-not-unexpected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/08\/a-far-right-government-in-austria-would-be-a-jolt-but-not-unexpected\/","title":{"rendered":"A Far-Right Government in Austria Would Be a Jolt, but Not Unexpected"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/01\/08\/multimedia\/08austria-right-thlb\/08austria-right-thlb-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"A Far-Right Government in Austria Would Be a Jolt, but Not Unexpected\" title=\"A Far-Right Government in Austria Would Be a Jolt, but Not Unexpected\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The political party <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/06\/world\/europe\/austria-coalition-far-right-chancellor.html\" title=\"\">on the verge of leading Austria<\/a> would take an already conservative country into a growing group of nations shifting to the far-right of European politics. It has flirted with Nazi slogans, cozied up to Russia and drawn warnings from Holocaust survivors\u2019 groups. It campaigned on promises to deport immigrants and ban political forms of Islam.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Freedom Party, known as the FP\u00d6, and its firebrand leader, Herbert Kickl, were given the chance to form a governing coalition this week, after efforts to bar them from power collapsed. If they succeed in forming a government, it would be a shock to the Austrian political system and a further jolt to Western Europe, where similarly far-right parties are surging in France, Germany and elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But it would not be a surprise.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Freedom Party\u2019s rise follows years of growing acceptance of the far right in Austrian politics. Its growth has been helped by scandals and an ideological shift in the more mainstream conservative party that has led Austria\u2019s governments for 15 of the last 25 years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Unlike in neighboring Germany, where all other parties have refused to include the right-wing-populist Alternative for Germany in federal ruling coalitions, other parties in Austria have allowed the Freedom Party to share power for years as a junior partner.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Freedom Party has <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.foresight.at\/fileadmin\/user_upload\/wahlen\/2024_ORF-FORESIGHT-ISA_Wahlbefragung-NRW24.pdf\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">broadened its appeal<\/a> in recent elections <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/feps-europe.eu\/a-far-right-triumph-austrias-2024-election-and-the-fpos-historic-win\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">with an anti-establishment message<\/a> that harshly criticizes immigrants, Covid restrictions, the European Union and support for Ukraine in its defense against the Russian invasion. The party has gained support from blue-collar workers, university graduates and, critically, women. In elections for the European Parliament this summer, it was the most popular party among Austrian voters under the age of 35.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe idea that the FP\u00d6 is somehow politically taboo, that train has long left the station,\u201d said Laurenz Ennser-Jedenastik, a political scientist at the University of Vienna.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Freedom Party was founded by former members of the SS, the Nazi paramilitary force, in the 1950s. It was largely shunned in its early years, but then slowly became part of the political establishment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The party first entered a national government with progressive Social Democrats in 1983 and has served in four ruling coalitions since, the most recent just six years ago. It\u2019s also active on the state level and is in coalitions in the majority of Austria\u2019s nine states.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Until the late 1980s, the Freedom Party was a small, elitist entity largely associated with certain nationalist university fraternities. A new leader, J\u00f6rg Haider, attracted more voters by adopting campaign rhetoric harshly critical of foreigners. <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That focus has become the driving force of the modern party, sharpened and intensified by Mr. Kickl, who wrote speeches for Mr. Haider early in his career. Mr. Kickl steered the party into <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fondapol.org\/en\/study\/the-fpo-and-the-challenge-of-europe-ideological-radicalism-and-electoral-constraints-in-austria\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">increasingly provocative slogans<\/a>, including the xenophobic \u201cViennese blood \u2014 too many foreigners does no one any good.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 2017, the Freedom Party joined a governing coalition with the conservative People\u2019s Party. Karin Kneissl, then the Freedom Party\u2019s choice of foreign minister, was widely criticized for dancing at her 2018 wedding with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. She has since moved to Russia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The administration and the coalition collapsed quickly in a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/05\/18\/world\/europe\/austria-video-strache.html\" title=\"\">scandal<\/a> involving a hidden camera, a fake Russian heiress and a former Freedom Party leader in 2019.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">During the administration, Mr. Kickl served as the country\u2019s interior minister, putting him in charge of immigration control, a subject that has been integral to the party\u2019s platform. <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He made headlines back then for suggesting \u201cconcentrating\u201d refugees in centralized facilities. Although Mr. Kickl later claimed that he was not trying to provoke, many believe that his use of a Nazi-era phrase referencing concentration camps was deliberate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It was also not isolated. Mr. Kickl\u2019s party has since repeatedly invoked the term \u201cVolkskanzler\u201d \u2014 \u201cthe people\u2019s chancellor\u201d \u2014 that was used by Hitler.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">While others in the party have wanted to soften the anti-immigrant rhetoric, Mr. Kickl has capitalized on raw, emotional appeals to native-born Austrian workers. He tapped into discontent over an influx of refugees to Austria from the Middle East and, later, Ukraine. At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, he rallied opposition to vaccine mandates, lockdowns and masks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In last fall\u2019s campaign, Mr. Kickl promised to build \u201cFortress Austria\u201d \u2014 by resorting to strict border control measures, the forced deportation of immigrants and a suspension of asylum rights for refugees, which would require breaking from a European Union agreement on migration. He called for a reversal of measures meant to fight climate change and a renewed focus on fossil fuels. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He has also pushed for political changes that some analysts say would push Austria toward a more authoritarian model of government, akin to Viktor Orban in Hungary. <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fpoe.at\/wahlprogramm-nrw-2024\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Those changes include<\/a> new referendum procedures that would allow a relatively small slice of the electorate to force a national vote to overturn the government or dismiss individual ministers. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Kickl\u2019s platform appealed to many voters, with the party winning the most seats in the September election for the national assembly. \u201cThere\u2019s more demand for a certain toughness from politics,\u201d said Christoph Hofinger, an Austrian election researcher.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For some, it caused alarm. After the election, Christoph Heubner, the executive vice president for the International Auschwitz Committee, said that for Holocaust survivors, the victory had added \u201ca new alarming chapter to their fears and concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Freedom Party has benefited, in part, from the problems of the People\u2019s Party. The group won the chancellorship handily in 2017, after turning toward the right on many issues. But the People\u2019s Party quickly fell into a series of scandals, including one related to <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/10\/17\/world\/europe\/austria-sebastian-kurz-scandal-chancellor.html\" title=\"\">rigged opinion polls<\/a> published in the press. It also faced voter discontent over inflation and Covid restrictions, along with its most recent coalition partner, the Green Party.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-8\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">After the election loss, Karl Nehammer, the incumbent chancellor from the People\u2019s Party, said he would not enter into a coalition with Mr. Kickl. Many saw the promise, made during the campaign, as a play to hold on to the chancellery, rather than an ideological stance, since the two parties have a long history of working together in state and federal governments.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThere was never any fundamental criticism of the FP\u00d6\u2019s understanding of democracy or the rule of law\u201d from the conservatives, Mr. Ennser-Jedenastik said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Despite months of trying, the People\u2019s Party was unable to form a coalition without the far right. And Mr. Nehammer announced his resignation from the chancellorship this week, paving the way for the Freedom Party to emerge on top in a coalition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In a governing coalition, Mr. Kickl will not be able to deliver on all of his promises. The next Austrian government will need to close a budget deficit, which could hamper his economic agenda, including tax cuts and social spending increases.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But the party\u2019s popularity will give him a strong voice as he pushes for policy changes directed at foreigners and refugees, according to analysts. Likely among them: cutting social services to those who don\u2019t speak German or reducing financial aid for refugees.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-9\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">During the fall election, 29 percent of Austrians voted for the Freedom Party. Current polling now puts voter support at more than 35 percent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIf Kickl ever feels like the other side is not taking these talks seriously, he just gets up from the table and forces early elections,\u201d said Mr. Hofinger.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/08\/world\/europe\/austria-far-right-freedom-party.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The political party on the verge of leading Austria would take an already conservative country into a growing group of nations shifting to the far-right of European politics. It has flirted with Nazi slogans, cozied up to Russia and drawn warnings from Holocaust survivors\u2019 groups. It campaigned on promises to deport immigrants and ban political [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/01\/08\/multimedia\/08austria-right-thlb\/08austria-right-thlb-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[54575,724,3954,59027,164426,3096,21519,44184,164476,54576,137131,4354],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210682"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210682"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210684,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210682\/revisions\/210684"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}