Austria is set for a far-right chancellor. For the EU it’s the ‘new normal’
Share:
If Herbert Kickl becomes chancellor, Vienna will join list of disruptive member states, putting EU policies in peril. When Austria’s Freedom party (FPÖ) entered government 25 years ago, shock waves reverberated around Europe. Punitive measures were imposed, diplomatic visits cancelled and Belgium even suggested the EU could do without the Alpine country.
That was when the far-right party was only a junior coalition partner. This time, the FPÖ – nativist, anti-immigration and fiercely critical of the EU – is in the driving seat. Its leader, Herbert Kickl, is in pole position to be Austria’s next chancellor.
What’s more, under what looks likely to be its first far-right-led government since the second world war, Vienna would this time join an expanding bloc of disruptive, Moscow-friendly member states at the heart of Europe. If Kickl does become chancellor, he will join like-minded leaders including Hungary’s Viktor Orbán – whom he has hailed as a role model – Robert Fico in Slovakia and probably, after elections in October, Andrej Babiš of the Czech Republic.
So it is a measure of how far the far right has advanced in the EU that the reaction in Brussels and other capitals is little more than a shrug. “We’re going to have to deal with it, aren’t we?” said a diplomat from a large member state. “It’s the new normal.”.
