This article was last updated on January 3, 2025
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Austria’s cabinet formation in disarray: liberals quit
The smallest of the three parties in the Austrian coalition negotiations, the liberal Neos, is withdrawing from the talks. Party leader Beate Meinl-Reisinger said this.
The radical right-wing FPÖ became the largest party in the parliamentary elections for the first time in September. Nevertheless, President Van der Bellen instructed the conservative ÖVP to form a new government. In doing so, he broke with the tradition of asking the leader of the largest party to do so.
The ÖVP started negotiations with the social democratic SPÖ and Neos. According to Meinl-Reisinger, both other parties showed too little ambition and insufficient progress was made.
Two Party Coalition?
She added that her party is still willing to support in parliament the agreements already agreed in the negotiations. With this she hints at a possible two-party coalition of the SPÖ and the ÖVP. They have just enough seats (92 out of 183 seats) in the Nationalrat, the Austrian House of Representatives.
Since the FPÖ was passed over, the party has only risen in the polls. The party calls the current negotiations undemocratic and an attempt to create a “coalition of losers”.
Resistance to FPÖ
Only the conservative ÖVP is willing to cooperate with the radical right FPÖ, and then only under conditions. The resistance to the FPÖ is partly due to the role of party leader Herbert Kickl in a Russian spy scandal. Kickl also sees himself as Volkskanzler, a title that the Nazis used for Adolf Hitler. It is feared that the rule of law is not in good hands with him: he is known for his statement that politics should not follow the law, but the law should follow politics.
After the election results in September, thousands of people took to the streets in Vienna to demonstrate against a possible participation in government by the radical right party.
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