Austria’s new government: poised to join Putin’s gang

“Vienna could be about to get its first far-right leader since WWII,” said Oliver Noyan on Politico (Brussels). Ever since Herbert Kickl’s far-right Freedom Party edged a win in September’s legislative elections with 29% of the vote, Austria’s centrist politicians have tried to block Kickl from becoming chancellor. Last week, though, negotiations between those mainstream parties collapsed, and Kickl promptly “fired the starting gun” on coalition talks with the centre-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP).

Kickl, whose party was founded by former Nazis, styles himself as the Volkskanzler (“People’s Chancellor”), and has vowed to build a “Fortress Austria” by banning asylum seekers and “remigrating” those already in the country. It’s a dark day for Austrian politics, said Michael Völker in Der Standard (Vienna), but mainstream parties like the ÖVP don’t “have many options left”. If the latest talks fail, there could be another election. Polls suggest the Freedom Party could do even better next time round.

“Chancellor Kickl is not a given,” said Thomas Mayer in the same paper. Austria’s centrist parties may come to their senses and try a second round of coalition talks, or form a minority government. And even if Kickl does prevail, that doesn’t mean he’ll succeed. He’ll soon realise governing is far harder than campaigning. He won votes on an anti-establishment platform, railing against the EU and lambasting “the system”. But as chancellor, he’d be the face of that system, and how he plans to close Austria’s gaping €18 billion budget deficit while cutting taxes and protecting social benefits remains “his secret”.

Most of his policies will fail on first contact with reality, said Arno Tausch in Kurier (Vienna). His proposal to eliminate social benefits for asylum seekers, for example, won’t make it past the Austrian and European courts. And as with all awkward coalitions, it won’t be long till the “internal contradictions” between the Freedom Party and the ÖVP burst into the open and end this new government “with a bang”.

The real worry is “the Putinisation of central Europe”, said The Economist. While Vladimir Putin‘s closest neighbours in the Baltics see him “for exactly what he is: a murderous revanchist who invades his neighbours”, a growing number of central European nations are sympathetic to the dictator. Viktor Orbán, “the strongman of Hungary”, has cosied up to the Kremlin and repeatedly attempted to block European sanctions imposed on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. And “he has a like-minded neighbour” in Robert Fico of Slovakia, while in the Czech Republic another pro-Russia eurosceptic is leading the polls. How chilling that Austria, too, is on the brink of being led by a Putin sympathiser who wants to cut aid to Ukraine. Kickl joins a growing gang, but his rise “will delight only the autocrats”.