Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen has tasked the leader of the Freedom Party (FPÖ) with forming a coalition government after a bid to assemble one without it collapsed over the weekend.
The announcement marks a dramatic reversal for the President, a former leader of the left-wing Greens who has long been critical of the FPÖ and has clashed with its leader Herbert Kickl, but few options remained.
The FPÖ won last September’s parliamentary election with 29 per cent of the vote. It will now enter talks with its only potential partner, the Conservative People’s Party (OVP).
“I have… tasked him with launching talks with the People’s Party to form a government,” Van der Bellen said in a televised address after meeting Kickl, adding: “I did not take this step lightly.”
As Kickl left his meeting with the President, hundreds of protesters including Jewish students and left-wing activists booed, whistled, chanted “Nazis out” and waved banners with slogans such as “We don’t want a right-wing extremist Austria”.
Van der Bellen had infuriated the FPÖ by not tasking it with forming a government soon after the election. That task instead fell to the Conservative People’s Party (OVP) and its leader Chancellor Karl Nehammer. The OVP came second in the election.
Nehammer’s attempts to assemble a three- and then two-party coalition with other centrist parties fell apart this weekend, prompting him to announce his resignation.
Nehammer had long insisted his party would not govern with Kickl, saying the FPÖ leader was a conspiracy theorist and security threat. With Nehammer gone, so is that red line. His interim successor as OVP leader, Christian Stocker, said on Sunday January 5 his party would join coalition talks led by Kickl.
“We are at the very beginning. If we are invited to these talks, the outcome of those talks is open,” OVP heavyweight Wilfried Haslauer, the governor of Salzburg state who stood next to Stocker at his first statement as designated party leader, told broadcaster ORF.
Should those talks fail, however, a snap election is likely, and opinion polls show FPÖ support has grown since September.
The OVP and FPÖ overlap on various issues, particularly over taking a tough line on immigration.
The thorniest issue in the centrists’ talks, however, was how to shrink the budget deficit, which is forecast to exceed the EU’s limit of 3 per cent of economic output in 2024 and 2025.
While both parties call for tax cuts, the FPÖ has pledged to take a knife to some of the OVP’s vested interests, such as the powerful Chamber of Commerce. The two parties have also clashed over the FPÖ’s opposition to aid for Ukraine in its war against Russia, and current plans for a missile defence system.
Van der Bellen has repeatedly said he will remain vigilant to ensure “cornerstones of democracy” including human rights, independent media and Austria’s membership of the European Union are respected.
The Austrian governmental crisis following Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s resignation has ended the cordon sanitaire imposed on the winning Freedom Party of Austria after the September 2024 elections. https://t.co/WRX1oTN279
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) January 6, 2025
