OeVP leader Christian Stocker (C) presented the government programme on Thursday together with the two other parties [Alex Halada/AFP via Getty]
Austria’s conservative People’s Party (OeVP) on Thursday announced a government coalition with two centrist parties that excludes the far right, which came first in elections in September.
With the Alpine EU member without a government for the longest stretch in its modern history, the deal caps months of negotiations after the Freedom Party (FPOe)’s historic election win, when it gained almost a third of votes.
Negotiations between the FPOe and OeVP – which came second in September – on Austria’s first far right-led government broke down this month.
After the collapse, the OeVP, the Social Democrats (SPOe) – who placed third – and the liberal NEOS resumed coalition talks after their first attempt at forming a government failed in January.
OeVP leader Christian Stocker on Thursday presented the government programme entitled “Do the right thing now. For Austria,” together with the two other parties.
“We have just completed perhaps the most difficult government negotiations in the history of our country,” Stocker told reporters.
President Alexander Van der Bellen had called on party leaders to quickly compromise.
The three-party governing coalition is Austria’s first since 1949.
The agreement “prevents the right-wing extremist FPOe from entering the most important institutions in our country” and “safeguards the rule of law and democracy in Austria”, SPOe leader Andreas Babler said.
Migration measures
The new government will strengthen integration, make all those who get asylum sign a declaration that they are against anti-Semitism and work out a “constitutional legal ban on headscarves,” according to its programme.
It also plans to temporarily suspend family reunification “with immediate effect” for refugees and may stop accepting asylum requests if the numbers of asylum seekers rise, Stocker said.
Earlier this month, police arrested a 23-year-old Syrian with asylum status over the fatal stabbing of a teen in southern Austria, in what the authorities have said was an “Islamist attack”. The incident has led to renewed calls to clamp down on asylum.
The coalition’s programme also promises a federal prosecutor’s office, common elsewhere in the EU. Austria has been shaken by a series of wide-ranging corruption scandals in recent years.
The programme emphasised that the government was “committed to a strong and better European Union”.
‘Huge problems’
The new government is expected to be sworn in next week, with Stocker as the new chancellor, once the programme has been officially approved by the three parties.
Van der Bellen will also “carefully check” the programme, the presidency said in a statement on X.
Stocker took over the OeVP leadership this year to replace former chancellor Karl Nehammer after the first round of three-way coalition talks failed.
The 64-year-old lawyer, a lawmaker since 2019, became OeVP general secretary in 2022.
FPOe radical leader Herbert Kickl on Facebook condemned “the worst programme of all time – a low point for Austria!”
Political analyst Thomas Hofer said the three-way coalition was expected to “remain predictable and will not cause any major waves.
“But the parties are facing huge problems, including their popularity ratings,” he told AFP.
Kickl, who has repeatedly called for swift new elections, is “banking on those popularity ratings” dropping further, Hofer said.
The FPOe tops current opinion polls with more than 33 percent, up from the almost 29 percent they gained in September.
The OeVP – which has ruled the country of nine million since 1987 – has slumped to under 19 percent in voter opinion surveys, compared to the more than 26 percent they got in September.
Tens of thousands of people protested the earlier FPOe-led talks to form a government.
