As a party with Nazi roots tops the poll in Austria Patrick Costello examines the far right threat across Europe
The clear win by Austria’s far right FPÖ in national elections on 30 September was further confirmation of far right normalisation across Europe. As in the Netherlands earlier this year, the “win” was nowhere near a majority (29%) but Austria’s conservatives have shown no inclination to shut the far right out of power in this election or in previous ones. The most likely outcome is a coalition driven by the FPÖ, whoever becomes the new chancellor.
Austria will then join Hungary, Netherlands, Italy, Slovakia, Finland and Croatia as EU governments of or including the far right. To those can be added Sweden, where the far right are part of the government’s parliamentary majority, and Belgium, where the Flemish nationalist Bart de Wever has been charged with putting together a coalition government following their electoral success in June. In total, around a third of the EU’s governments are now controlled or strongly influenced by far right politicians. Victor Orban now has many more allies around the table and is chilling the champagne in anticipation of what he hopes will be a Trump victory across the Atlantic.
Austria’s result has a particular resonance in Brussels. The FPÖ was founded by a former Nazi official and SS officer in the 1950s. In 1999, the party, then led by Jörg Haider, joined a coalition government, so for the first time since World War 2 ministers from a far right party started participating in EU ministerial meetings. The reaction in Brussels was one of shock. Diplomatic sanctions were imposed on Vienna and a number of governments and MEPs were talking openly about the prospect of throwing Austria out of the EU altogether. A quarter of a century on the reaction to the FPÖ’s electoral victory in Brussels is more of a wry shrug of the shoulders.
The result was expected. The FPÖ had been leading the polls for some time and they won at the expense of the governing coalition of Christian Democrats and Greens with the Socialists maintaining the 21% they received in 2019. Yet it should have been more of a surprise. Only five years earlier, the then leaders of the party, the junior partners in another coalition government with the Christian Democrats, were forced to resign. A journalist’s sting operation had exposed on camera their willingness to sell public assets to Russian business-people in exchange for campaign contributions. The scandal precipitated a snap election that autumn which they lost badly, and many in Austria assumed that the scale of the defeat would keep them out of power for a generation. So Austria’s results challenge the false theory that the best way to destroy the far right is to put them in power and kick them out at the ballot box when they fail.
It also reinforces the more extreme manifestations of far right politics in Europe. Unlike Le Pen in France or Meloni in Italy, Herbert Kickl, their party leader, made no attempt to soften his message, campaigning openly on a pro-“re-migration” and pro-Russia platform. They campaigned for Kickl to become “VolksKanzler”, explicitly echoing the usage of the term by Adolf Hitler. Like the AfD in Germany they are being electorally rewarded for the use of ever more explicit racist and fascist campaign language.
So why the complacency in Brussels? In part it is because so far the impact on EU decision-making has been relatively minor. The centre just about held in the European Parliament elections and the appointment of the EU’s top jobs for the next five years reflected the continuing coalition of Centre-Right, Liberals and Socialists. Some minor adjustments have been to accommodate Italy’s Meloni, whose candidate for Commissioner has been offered one of the five powerful positions of executive vice President in the new Commission, but Meloni has so far played a constructive game in Brussels. So the predominant feeling as the new candidate Commissioners prepare to face their parliamentary hearings is one of business as usual. President Von der Leyen, fresh from her parliamentary confirmation by a clear majority (paradoxically thanks to the Socialists and the Greens) felt confident enough to propose the health and animal welfare portfolio for the Hungarian Commissioner in a clear snub to Viktor Orban.
However, as her officials prepare their first annual work programme (the EU’s equivalent of the King’s speech), the warning signals are growing in number that getting her legislative programme through Parliament and Council is going to be a tricky exercise. In one of the early votes of this Parliament, on Venezuela, the centre-right EPP snubbed the Socialists and Greens and instead negotiated a text with the far right because, together, they had the numbers to force it through. If this same political logic is applied to legislation, EU migration and green transition policies are going to look very different, and this approach by Parliament will be supported, backed up and applauded by an ever-growing number of Member States in the Council.