Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) is on the cusp of forming a coalition government with the centre-right People’s Party (ÖVP), triggering a wave of panic throughout Brussels. If formed, it would be the first time the far-right has taken power in Austria since the end of World War II.
FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl is the favorite to become chancellor, and has been tasked with forming a government. The FPÖ has previously served as the junior coalition partner in Austrian governments over the past four decades, but never as the leading party. A Eurosceptic and pro-Russian politician, Kickl also supports much stricter migration rules for Austria. The party’s manifesto, entitled “Fortress Austria,” advocates for strict border controls, the suspension of asylum rights, and the “remigration of uninvited foreigners.”
It’s a political turn that has policymakers in Brussels biting their nails, as Kickl’s sympathies would further push the EU towards the right and positions that, until recently, had been considered too extreme.
If Kickl is successful in forming a government with the ÖVP, he would join a faction of Eurosceptic EU leaders currently made up of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico.
But taking power in Austria won’t be smooth sailing. The country has a significant deficit, which is expected to come in at 4.2% of GDP in 2025 if no corrective action is taken, according to the Austrian Institute of Economic Research.
In a Q&A with The Parliament, Laurenz Ennser-Jedenastik, deputy head of the department of government at the University of Vienna, discussed the road ahead for the likely next chancellor of Austria.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How likely is it that the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) will succeed in forming a coalition government?
I think it's extremely likely. Yesterday [Monday] we had the first announcement out of the coalition talks, where they just announced they have agreed on a way to find all the savings to avoid an EU excessive deficit procedure that would otherwise have been happening. It seems like they're on track to tackle the most difficult part of the negotiations, which was agreeing on a way of consolidating the budget over the next two years. That's the thorniest issue. I would be very surprised if this fails now.
What do you think led to the rise of the FPÖ?
The FPÖ is a little different from many other far-right parties in Europe, in that it has a much longer history that dates back to the 1950s. It was then basically reinvented in the 1980s by Jörg Haider, who turned it into this modern radical right party that we have now. He also made it into a much more populist party.
I think there's multiple reasons that have made the party successful. If we were to run a poll, what would come out would be anti-immigrant sentiment, Euroscepticism among voters, opposition to Covid measures and vaccinations, as well as opposition to measures to combat climate change. Those are more recent developments. There is also a more pro-Russian feeling, more criticism towards supporting Ukraine on the part of voters. These are positions the party has taken in the past few years. They are positions that no other party takes in the party system. The FPÖ is basically a monopoly provider of these positions in [Austria’s] electoral market.
Where does this feeling among some Austrian voters come from?
Austria is like many countries. It's very diverse, in some ways at least. If you look at it from a broader European perspective, it's an open economy, lots of exports, lots of tourism. It's very dependent on these international trade links and tourism links. The economy is very globalised in a sense.
You could think that this means it's an open and outward looking country. But if you look at public opinion, Austria is different to Sweden or the Netherlands or France. It's halfway between Western and Eastern Europe in terms of people's attitudes. For instance, support for European integration is pretty solid in Austria, but it's on the more sceptical side of all the EU countries. If you had a referendum today on leaving the European Union, it would certainly fail. But there would be like 25%, maybe 30% of people who would vote for that. And that's been a pretty constant proportion over the last 25-30 years.
The same goes for opposition to sanctions on Russia, for instance. It’s not an issue that people think about every day. But if you ask people about it, many people will have a view similar to the Austrian tradition of neutrality when it comes to foreign policy. There's like an inbuilt scepticism towards siding with the Western alliance. Even though the majority of people would identify Russia as the perpetrator in the war in Ukraine and think that we should support Ukraine. But there's still around 20-30% who would say the Europeans and NATO provoked it -- similar to Russian propaganda narratives.
And you don't have to have huge majorities supporting positions like that to have a party that can gain like 25-30% of the vote and then be the strongest party and also lead a government.
If the FPÖ were to form a government, what would the impact on support for Ukraine be?
My hunch would be that Austria's position will not change massively because I think that the ÖVP will make it a condition to the coalition – no rapprochement with Russia, no foreign influence on Austria.
But that doesn't mean that everything will continue as it has in the past, where Austria has basically just gone along with what the majority of countries in the EU wanted it to do on Russia and Ukraine. It also really depends on individuals. So, for instance, who's going to be the foreign minister, and how much will foreign policy depend on the prime minister versus the foreign minister? I assume that the ÖVP will be the party providing the foreign minister. And from the perspective of the FPÖ, foreign policy is not really a top priority for the party.
Kickl will be the chancellor and will thus be a member of the European Council. He’ll have a say on decisions made there. As for the direction of travel of the European Union, he will have allies in Orbán and Fico, and maybe a few others. And that could increase the weight of this more Eurosceptic and more pro-Russian bloc in the European Council.
Can we expect friction with the EU given Kickl’s stance on immigration, Russia, and his general Euroscepticism?
Yes. At least in rhetoric, if not substance. It will be very difficult for Kickl to even appear to cosy up to the [European] Commission president. This is the party that in the European election campaign [last spring], had huge campaign posters all over the country of [Commission President] Ursula von der Leyen French kissing [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy. It was a really grotesque depiction of a line that basically comes out of a Russian propaganda playbook.
Even if the FPÖ doesn't plan on completely subverting EU foreign policy, I think they will at least try to pick some battles with the Commission to solidify their support among Eurosceptic voters in Austria. This will be a government under huge fiscal pressure for basically all of its governing period. There are very few wins that you can take home from tax policy or social policy. Everything costs lots of money. That means if the government wants some PR wins, then it will need to go to other places.
How will the deficit impact the FPÖ’s ability to govern?
The deficit means that the agenda will be dominated by these more economic issues. The deficit also means that the FPÖ will find it much more difficult to do what it said in its manifesto. A lot involves tax cuts for individuals and businesses that will lower the burden on them and potentially boost employment. But that costs a lot of money. And manifestos don’t have budget constraints. But there's an actual budget constraint if you want to run a government. The FPÖ’s proposals will hit this reality where they’ll have zero wiggle room to actually do anything except if you find additional money somewhere else.
Is Kickl the next Victor Orbán?
I don’t think so. I think he's much more constrained than Orbán. First of all, Orbán had massive, absolute majorities, ones that meant he could change the constitution. And in Hungary over time, he has basically eliminated all obstacles that would constrain the power of the executive. That's not at all true in Austria. Austria will have a coalition government, so there's no absolute majority for Kickl: he’ll be constrained by a coalition partner. There's also a very strong constitutional court that has proven to be quite a formidable obstacle to policymakers in the past. Constitutional protections of human rights in Austria are also extremely strong. There's also a bureaucracy in the Austrian ministerial administration that is relatively hostile to the FPÖ. There’s a very active civil society and a still functioning media – and an independent judiciary that will also serve as a constraint.
Do you think there's a risk that the pro-Russian sentiment shown by the FPÖ will continue to sweep further West?
Austria used to be a very pro-Russian country. We were a pro-Russian government. That is not something someone would say today. So I think there has been a change, at least in terms like the public discourse on how the country has been blind to the detrimental influence of Russia in all of its spheres – culturally, economically, politically. I think there has been a shift in how sensitive people have become to this issue.
And that's what makes me think that it's not certain this will just sweep over the map. Because as long as there's public attention on these questions, I think there will be more people who will be more alert and less likely to fall prey to these attempts of influence peddling from outside.
What are the long-term implications of this political shift towards the FPÖ for Austria’s future?
I see it as a continuation of a trend that has been ongoing for a long time. The tendency for far-right parties to be very successful in Austria has always existed. With the FPÖ’s success, it had its best result ever, but it was only two points or so ahead of where it was in 1999. That's 25 years ago.
So what is now happening is that it seems like there are no limits on access to government. What has changed is not the strength of the party. The party has not even attempted to moderate in advance of the election and potential coalition negotiations. In previous times when the FPÖ tried to get into government, it deliberately took some steps to appear more moderate. It toned down its anti-EU rhetoric and had candidates [who appeared] a bit more mainstream. And it wasn’t electorally successful. And now we have a party without moderation attempts getting into government. That’s one step further into the normalisation of the radical right.