{"id":391800,"date":"2024-09-23T17:58:05","date_gmt":"2024-09-23T15:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2024\/09\/23\/elezioni-austria-estrema-destra\/"},"modified":"2024-09-27T11:51:07","modified_gmt":"2024-09-27T09:51:07","slug":"far-right-soars-in-austrian-polls-amidst-russian-gas-dependence-and-anti-migrant-sentiment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/09\/23\/far-right-soars-in-austrian-polls-amidst-russian-gas-dependence-and-anti-migrant-sentiment\/","title":{"rendered":"Far-right soars in Austrian polls amidst Russian gas dependence and anti-migrant sentiment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels\u00a0– After making a killing in the regional elections in the <\/span>L\u00e4nder\u00a0<\/span><\/i>of former East Germany, the far-right seems to be one step closer to government in Austria<\/strong> as well, where next Sunday (Sept. 29), a vote to renew the federal parliament will be held.\u00a0<\/span>The\u00a0Freiheitliche Partei \u00d6sterreichs<\/strong><\/em>(FPO)<\/strong>, the “freedom party” led by\u00a0Herbert Kickl<\/strong>, began several months ago, and now polls give the anti-Islam and pro-Kremlin group just under 30 per cent, at the end of an election campaign dominated by the\u00a0debate over immigration<\/strong>\u00a0and the issue of\u00a0energy dependence on Moscow<\/strong>.<\/span>\u00a0The far-right could express the chancellor for the first time since the postwar period, but it is not a foregone conclusion.<\/span><\/p>\n

First it was the turn of Germany, where the ultra-right ethno-nationalist <\/span>Alternative f\u00fcr Deustchland (AfD)<\/strong> came first in Thuringia<\/a> and second (by a whisker) in Saxony and Brandenburg<\/a>. Now the radical right could come in first on a national scale in Austria<\/strong> as well, which would potentially open the doors of the chancellery to Kickl for the first time in history.\u00a0<\/span>For now, no party appears to be able to gain an absolute\u00a0majority<\/strong>: the\u00a0FPO<\/strong>\u00a0is hovering around\u00a029 per cent of support<\/strong>, while in second and third place are the centre-right\u00a0People’s Party (OVP)<\/strong>\u00a0and the\u00a0Social Democrats (SPO)<\/strong>\u00a0at 22 and 21 per cent, respectively.<\/span>\u00a0At the European\u00a0elections\u00a0last June, the far-right brought<\/a> in Strasbourg the largest delegation (6 MEPs sitting in the Patriots for Europe<\/strong> group), ahead of the Populars and Social Democrats (5 elected each).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the aftermath of the vote, the real question will, therefore, be about the\u00a0coalitions<\/strong>: the FPO\u2014which now stands in opposition to the Popular-Green majority\u2014has\u00a0already been in government<\/strong>\u00a0in the past as a minority partner in several OVP-led executives but has\u00a0never<\/strong>\u00a0expressed the federal chancellor.<\/span>\u00a0The possibility of Kickl succeeding in office, however, is not a foregone conclusion: even if the Christian Democrats of Karl Nehammer<\/strong> (who currently leads the executive) come second at the polls, they could agree to form a government with the ultra-right only in exchange for retaining the chancellorship. Alternative alliances<\/strong> to exclude the FPO from the games are theoretically possible (e.g., OVP, SPO, plus a third leg such as the Greens or the Neos liberals) but would be doomed to greater political instability<\/strong>, as the case of Olaf Scholz’s “traffic light coalition” in Berlin teaches.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At any rate, the election campaign<\/strong> in Austria focused <\/a>on the issues of security and immigration<\/strong> on the one hand and, on the other, the issue of Vienna’s dependence on Russian hydrocarbons.\u00a0<\/span>Since the police foiled an\u00a0attack<\/strong>\u00a0last August that was supposed to have been triggered at the\u00a0Taylor Swift<\/strong>\u00a0concert in the capital, public discourse on\u00a0frontier control<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Islamic-motivated terrorism<\/strong>\u00a0has tightened, while the FPO has publicly supported\u00a0remigration plans<\/strong>\u00a0(just like the AfD in Germany).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>I<\/strong>nflation<\/strong>, the cost of housing, and, in general, the rising cost of living<\/strong>\u00a0are other issues that are highly felt by the electorate. At the same time, the topic of climate change<\/strong> following the disasters caused by Cyclone Boris<\/strong> has also held sway in recent days.<\/span><\/p>\n

With regard to energy, more than 80 per cent of the gas<\/strong> that Austria imports from abroad arrived from Russia<\/strong>: an unsustainable<\/a>\u00a0situation for Vienna’s European partners, who have been multiplying their efforts to free themselves from Moscow’s supplies for the past two and a half years. As much as the OVP-Green coalition claims to be looking for alternative sources (primarily<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Norwegian methane), it is clear that Russian gas will not disappear from the country’s energy mix<\/strong> in the short term. Therefore, whoever sits at the government table will have to solve the complex puzzle of how to avoid new spikes in energy costs<\/strong> for households and businesses, especially if (as announced) Ukraine will block the transit of hydrocarbons from Russia to Austria through its territory from next year.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Herbert Kickl’s FPO, currently ahead (if only slightly) of conservatives and social democrats, could emerge victorious from the polls. Pushing the ultra-right mainly are the issues of security and the cost of energy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":391769,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[25746,26897,25866,26475,28344,28345,26205,29079],"class_list":["post-391800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-austria-en","tag-energy-en","tag-strema-destra-en","tag-fpo-en","tag-herbert-kickl-en","tag-immigration-en-2","tag-karl-nehammer-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391800"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":392144,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391800\/revisions\/392144"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}