Austria’s far-right vote success didn’t type government. How’s why 

Two days after a far-right group that won an election in September failed to form an management, three events reached a compromise on Thursday to form a new moderate Hungarian government. After what Christian Stocker, the country’s expected chancellor, described as “perhaps the most difficult negotiations on a government in the history of our country,” the country’s politicians broke a post-World War II record of 129 days to form a new government that dated to 1962, the conservative Austrian People’s Party, the center-left Social Democrats, and the liberal Neos came to an agreement on a program for a coalition. ” The challenges are historic and far-reaching”, said Stocker, the new People’s Party leader, pointing to the ongoing war in Ukraine, a creaking Austrian budget and pressure from migration — long a top issue in Austrian politics. The 9 million-person European Union nation’s new asylum laws are a part of the coalition agreement. It foresees setting up “return centers” to house rejected asylum-seekers and suspending family reunions. If the number of asylum applications rises, Stocker claimed that the new government will “reserve the right to place an asylum freeze.” The agreement includes a “mandatory integration program” for all applicants for asylum in Austria, which will include language and values tuition as well as community service. 12: 51
Is Western democracy under attack? Additionally, Stocker made it known that the three parties had agreed to work on a headscarf ban for girls under 14 to stop” segregation and repression.” Andreas Babler, the Social Democrats ‘ leader, stressed the need to address Austria’s budget deficit and claimed that “broader shoulders can carry heavier loads”. He claimed that the agreement also includes a bank levy. Austria is dealing with a third year of recession and rising unemployment. The EU is putting pressure on it to save billions of euros. Following a recent fatal stabbing by a suspected Islamic extremist, Blader stated that the new government will work to “remove the breeding ground for radicalization and extremism.” He said it will look for “quick solutions” to ensure social media platforms take greater responsibility. The three main parties made a second attempt to form a new government without the far-right, anti-immigration, and euroskeptic Freedom Party, which for the first time emerged as Austria’s strongest political force in the September 29 election. It took 28.8 % of the vote. Their first attempt fell apart in early January, causing Karl Nehammer, a conservative then-Chancellor, to resign, and setting the stage for Austria’s president to ask Freedom Party leader Herbert Kickl to try to form a government. Kickl’s own attempt to put together a coalition with the People’s Party, which finished second in the election, collapsed in mutual recriminations on Feb. 12. The main parties resumed their efforts to find common ground in the face of the possibility of a fresh election that was unfavorable to them. Kickl stated in a post on social media platform X on Thursday that” the most expensive government of all times presents us with the worst program of all times.” ” A low point for Austria” !Stocker, 64, is heading for the chancellery as one of the most unlikely politicians yet to become the country’s leader — a position he wasn’t running for when Austrians voted in September. Before joining the national parliament in 2019, he spent the majority of his career as a local politician in Lower Austria province. He has held the position of deputy mayor of Wiener Neustadt, south of Vienna, as the highest elected office he has ever held. However, he transitioned to the position of general secretary of the People’s Party, where he gained experience in 2022. 22. 24.
Austrian protesters fear ‘ return of fascist state’ with Kickl as next chancellorWhen he became party leader last month, Stocker made an about-turn and entered coalition talks with Kickl, under whom his party had previously refused to work — but balked at Kickl’s demands and blamed his “attitude” for scuttling the negotiations. According to the coalition agreement presented on Thursday, the new government’s parties “are committed to the European Union as the greatest peace project of all time.” It adds that Austria will continue to participate in the European Sky Shield missile-defense initiative, something that Kickl’s party wanted to leave. The outgoing government, a coalition of the People’s Party and environmentalist Greens now led by interim Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg, has remained in place on a caretaker basis since the election. With a combined 92 of the 183 seats, the Social Democrats and the People’s Party frequently co-ruled Austria in the past, but they now have the largest possible majority in the parliament. That was widely considered too small a cushion, so the two parties sought to bring in Neos, which has 18 seats and hasn’t previously joined a national government. At a convention scheduled for Sunday, the agreement still needs to be approved by the leadership of the two bigger parties and a two-thirds majority of Neos members. —Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.