Austria’s Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg will serve as the country’s interim leader. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg will serve as the country’s interim leader while the far-right Freedom Party attempts to put together a new coalition government, the President’s office said Wednesday (January 8, 2025).

Mr. Schallenberg, 55, will take on the duties of outgoing Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who announced his resignation over the weekend after his efforts to put together a coalition without the Freedom Party collapsed. Mr. Nehammer plans to step down on Friday (January 10, 2025).

President Alexander Van der Bellen’s office said in a statement that the head of state will formally task Schallenberg with “continuing the management of the chancellery and leading the interim government.”

It will be Schallenberg’s second — and, again, likely brief — stint as Austria’s leader. Mr. Schallenberg served as chancellor for less than two months in late 2021 after Sebastian Kurz resigned, before passing the job to Mr. Nehammer and returning to the Foreign Ministry.

The anti-immigration, eurosceptic and Russia-friendly Freedom Party won Austria’s parliamentary election in September but was initially shunned by other parties.

After Mr. Nehammer announced his resignation, his conservative Austrian People’s Party made an abrupt U-turn on its previous refusal to contemplate working with the Freedom Party under its leader, Herbert Kickl.

On Monday (January 6, 2025), Mr. Kickl received a mandate to try to form what would be the first national government led by the far right since World War II. That’s a process that could take weeks or months, and isn’t guaranteed to succeed.

Mr. Schallenberg has said he wouldn’t stay in the government under Mr. Kickl.

Vienna:

Austria’s ruling conservatives picked Secretary-General Christian Stocker as interim successor to Chancellor Karl Nehammer, Austrian media reported on Sunday, after Nehammer quit as his attempts to form a coalition government without the far right fell apart.

There was no immediate comment from the People’s Party (OVP), and Nehammer only told reporters after the party’s crisis leadership meeting on Sunday that “important and correct decisions” had been taken.

The surprise collapse of three- and then two-party talks aimed at cobbling together a centrist coalition that could serve as a bulwark against the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) after the FPO came first in September’s parliamentary election leaves President Alexander Van der Bellen with few options.

A snap election with support for the eurosceptic, Russia-friendly FPO still growing or an about-face in which Van der Bellen tasks FPO leader Herbert Kickl with forming a government are now the most likely options, with only limited scope for alternatives or playing for time.

“It is not an easy situation,” Markus Wallner, the governor of Vorarlberg, the westernmost of Austria’s nine provinces, told reporters before the OVP leadership meeting at the chancellor’s office on Sunday morning.

“I believe we must do everything we can now to avoid sliding towards a national crisis.”

Wallner said he opposed a snap election since that would delay the arrival of a new government by months. OVP governors are part of the leadership.

A spokesperson for Van der Bellen said he was due to address the nation at 2:45 p.m. (1345 GMT). Nehammer crossed the road separating their offices earlier to report to Van der Bellen on the OVP leadership meeting.

Nehammer insisted during and after the election campaign that his party would not govern with Kickl because he was too much of a conspiracy theorist and posed a security risk while at the same time saying much of Kickl’s party was trustworthy.

Nehammer’s successor will most likely be more open to a coalition with the FPO, which is formally allied with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party.

GROWING SUPPORT FOR FPO

The FPO won September’s election with around 29% of the vote, and opinion polls suggest its support has only grown since then, extending its lead over the OVP and Social Democrats to more than 10 percentage points while their support has shrunk.

The OVP and FPO overlap on various issues, particularly taking a tough line on immigration, to the point that the FPO has accused the OVP of stealing its ideas.

The two governed together from late 2017 until 2019, when a video-sting scandal involving the then-leader of the FPO prompted their coalition’s collapse. At the state level, they govern together in five of nine states, including in OVP moderate Wallner’s Vorarlberg.

The national dynamic is now different because if they were to form an alliance the OVP would for the first time be junior partner to the FPO, making the position of OVP leader difficult and undesirable to many.

After initial media reports that household names like former party leader Sebastian Kurz, who led the last coalition with the FPO and has since been convicted of perjury, could become OVP leader, Austrian media reported overnight that they were no longer in the running.

That left lesser-known figures such as new Chamber of Commerce Secretary-General Wolfgang Hattmannsdorfer, 45.

Meanwhile, the FPO hammered home its message.

“Austria needs a Chancellor Kickl now,” it said on X.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Head of Peoples Party (OEVP) and Chancellor Karl Nehammer.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said Saturday (January 4, 2024) he will resign in the coming days after talks on forming a new government failed a second time.

The announcement came after the People’s Party and the Social Democrats continued coalition talks a day after the liberal Neos party’s surprise withdrawal from discussions.

“We have tried everything up to this point. An agreement on key points is not possible, so it makes no sense for a positive future for Austria,” Mr. Nehammer, from the conservative People’s Party, was quoted as saying by Austrian broadcaster ORF.