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The incoming leader of Austria’s centrist People’s Party (ÖVP) has expressed his willingness to share power with the far right, just a day after Chancellor Karl Nehammer resigned after failing to form centrist ruling coalition.
Christian Stocker, Secretary General of the ÖVP, said on Sunday that he has been elected as the new head of the party and is ready to enter into negotiations with the anti-immigration party, the pro-Russian Freedom Party (FPÖ), which has emerged with the majority of seats. especially in Austria. national elections in September.
Stocker’s statement comes after Austrian president Alexander Van der Bellen announced he would meet FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl on Monday. Observers expect Van der Bellen to ask Kickl to form a coalition government, with the main parties having previously rejected such an alliance.
“If we are invited (by the FPÖ to hold coalition talks), we will conduct these talks as seriously as we did in the past with other parties,” said Stocker, stressing that his party will ” face their responsibilities”.
The ÖVP will be a minor partner in any relationship with the far-right Freedom party, which won 28.8 percent of the vote in September’s election, compared to the ÖVP’s 26.3 percent.
It was the first time the FPÖ, which has adopted increasingly hardline policies on immigration and the war in Ukraine under Kickl in recent years, came first in a national election.
The failed talks deepened the political situation in Austria at a time when its economy is at risk of shrinking for a third consecutive year in 2025. Vienna also faces the prospect of receiving between €18bn and €24bn to cut budget to adjust its public finances, according to figures from the EU Commission.
Another possibility to break any deadlock would be new elections, but that would strengthen the FPÖ’s hand even more. Another poll for the tabloid Kronen Zeitung after Nehammer’s resignation suggested that the FPÖ would rise to 37 percent in the snap vote, while the ÖVP would drop to 21 percent.
Van der Bellen last year gave the leader of the ÖVP and chancellor Nehammer at the time to form a government. Nehammer, who had vehemently denied any collaboration with Kickl, resigned late Saturday after admitting that lengthy negotiations with the Social Democrats had hit a wall.
The 52-year-old, who has served as chancellor since 2021 when his predecessor Sebastian Kurz stepped down amid a corruption investigation, wanted to strike a deal to form a centrist coalition with the Social Democrats and the small, liberal party of Neos.
In a brief statement to reporters in Vienna on Sunday, new ÖVP leader Stocker admitted that he was also very critical of the FPÖ during the campaign. But he stressed that the situation has changed and that all attempts to form a government without the FPÖ have failed.
