Sebastian Schaeffer: The coalition government of Austria will need to seek compromises – and I think they can do it [VIDEO]
Five months have passed since the Austrian elections – and only now there is a government in Vienna. The conservative Austrian People’s Party, the Social-Democrats and a new liberal party NEOS came together to tame the far right. Despite getting the highest number of votes, the Freedom Party of Austria will remain in opposition.
Sebastian Schaeffer of the Institute for Danube Region and Central Europe comments on the biggest challenges that the coalition will face and explains why he believes that this coalition – unlike the German traffic lights coalition – could actually lead the country for the entire parliamentary term.
The entire transcription of the video talk is available below.
Good morning everyone and welcome to the newest episode of Cross-border Talks, where we are going to discuss the new Austrian government and what would be the impact of this new government, a coalition government, for regional and international politics. Last year, just after the elections, we had a talk on the results with Sebastian Schäfer, head of the Institute for Danube Region and Central Europe, and he said then that he did not expect the new government to be formed soon. He actually predicted a few months long delay and he said that when the government was finally formed, he would be glad to come again to Cross-Border Talks and discuss the new developments.
And so congratulations Sebastian – what you predicted has come true. Welcome to the program and I’m happy that you are with us again.
Thank you very much, although this is not really a good achievement that it took so much time. I did not anticipate that it would be March that I would be returning, but nevertheless my pleasure and thank you for the invitation.
So the first question seems obvious: why so long?
Well, there was, first of all, after the election a consensus among the parties of the center, as they also branded themselves, that they would not want to go into a coalition government with Herbert Kickl, which is the leader of the Freedom Party, that has won the most votes, but not a majority. Then three of these four parties that are in the Austrian parliament stepped together and tried to negotiate for a new government: the conservative Austrian People’s Party, the Social Democratic Party and the liberal NEOS. They did talk for quite some time, but then, at a certain point the NEOS said that they could not see willingness for real reforms in the coalition talks and they mostly blamed the Social Democratic Party leader Andreas Babler for not wanting to move enough. They left the coalition talks and then also the conservative party and the Social Democrats decided that they would not continue the coalition talks because in theory there would be only a narrow majority between the two parties, namely one seat.
And then what happened was that the former chancellor Karl Nehammer stepped down also as party leader of the People’s Party. His main claim during the electoral campaign with regards to a coalition was that he would not go into a coalition with Herbert Kickl. When he stepped down, the conservative party tried to negotiate a coalition agreement with Herbert Kickl. They tried, they stared into this abyss – and ultimately decided that it would be impossible to form a government with them that has certain principles like adhering to European values, adhering to human rights, adhering to European law and even international law.
They started to negotiate in the beginning of January. So that was quite a surprising start to the new year. But then also these talks collapsed and the three parties that initially negotiated a coalition agreement set down back together and ultimately reached an agreement. The last hurdle was a vote of the members of the NEOS, because in their statutes, the members decide on joining a government. They decided with almost 95% that they would join. Therefore, since Monday 3 March Austria finally has a new government in place.
And of course, now we hope that the actual work can start.
This is basically what the leader of the NEOS wrote in the social media: that now the work starts. And the president, Van der Bellen, when swearing in the new government, also congratulated the three parties for getting out of their comfort zone. But now the question is how they would be able to work together.
I know that stopping a far-right party is a powerful motivation, especially when you see how in Austria this far-right party is steadily advancing with popular support indicators. However, as you mentioned, there were already grave differences of opinion, let’s say, between the Social Democratic Party and the Austrian People’s Party, the ÖVP. I can only wonder, will they find a common platform now when they are in the government?
Will they be able to find some common positions on the key questions such as economy or foreign policy? Or do you expect there will be some clashes inside the coalition?
I think it’s natural for a coalition to have clashes. I think we have somehow forgotten what parliamentary democracy with a proportional electoral system is all about. You have to find compromises.
And I’m very happy that you mentioned the Austrian President, Alexander Van der Bellen. He actually asked these three parties in particular to come to this compromise and to remember compromise. And I think they have done that.
There was a press conference in the Austrian state broadcaster, or more exactly a meeting of the three party leaders talking to journalists about their government programme. I’ve seen something that I think gives reason for optimism at the beginning. The NEOS leader and now foreign minister, Beate Meiner-Reisinger, in answer to a question, spoke about neutrality. She said that of course she was the leader of a party which had a certain programme and a certain position on the question of neutrality, but at the same time she was a minister in a coalition government with two other parties.
I think that is very important. One of the main reasons I would observe why the three-party government in Germany, the traffic light coalition collapsed was that here, in particular, I would say, the Liberal Party, the FDP and Christian Lindner forgot that they were part of a coalition government. They started campaigning early, while they were still in government. And that ultimately led to the collapse. So let’s hope that this spirit of understanding the different roles that people have in a democratic parliamentary system will also guide this government.
Of course, there will be certain areas where there are some differences. Neutrality is perhaps one of them. You mentioned the economy. There will certainly be other areas where we would expect different approaches. But if they stick to trying to find a solution and trying to find a compromise, then I’m quite optimistic that it can work.
And by the way, the last government between the ÖVP and the Greens was ultimately perceived as very, very much at odds with each other and working against each other. But I think what they did was they bridged those gaps, which in certain areas are much bigger than between the three parties that are now in government for five years. I think they did that quite well, even though it may not have been perceived as much by the general public.
So communication was probably a problem, rather than finding that compromise in the last government. Maybe the new government can learn from that.
As for the FPÖ, of course they are not happy with the outcome. Herbert Kickl was heard to say that this is a ‘coalition of losers’ and that early elections should be called as soon as possible. This is not the case, because Austria is a parliamentary democracy, where a coalition can be formed with the participation of the largest party, but it can also be formed by other parties if they find a majority.
The question of the FPÖ voters remains. With Donald Trump in the White House, there is a favourable political climate for all kinds of far-right, nationalist parties around the world. Are the Austrian sovereignists also benefiting from this climate? Where does the FPÖ now stand in the political system? What are their plans as an opposition party? And what is the attitude of its voters? Uis the number of its sympathisers growing or not?
First of all, I think that Herbert Kickl feels very comfortable in the role of opposition leader. He doesn’t have to deal with all the challenges. He can criticise everything. He’s a big fan of Donald Trump and his destructive politics. But he also knows that even if he were in government now, he couldn’t do the same thing because he would have to be in a coalition. He would also have to compromise to some extent. And I don’t think he’s prepared to do that.
He will be in a much more comfortable position as leader of the opposition to be able to criticise this, as you mentioned, what he calls the coalition of losers. But I mean, it was his party, of which he was already a member, that was the first to sort of break the unwritten rule that the party with the most votes has to be part of the government, which, as you rightly said, isn’t necessarily the case. They actually did that when the first ÖVP-FPÖ coalition was formed in the early 2000s. The FPÖ was actually the second party, the ÖVP was the third party, and yet they formed the government. So, in general, I have the feeling that we have a kind of historical amnesia in many cases, not only in Kickl’s case, but in general, when we look at the overall political situation and what you mentioned with the rise of far-right politics that seem to appeal to at least a third of the electorate that goes to the polls.
We have to ask ourselves, why is this happening? Why is this apparently so attractive? Because in certain respects I think it has never been easier to be on one side, for example in the war in Ukraine. Here, there’s a clear aggressor, there’s a clear violation of international law, and you can have different positions on how to deal with support for Ukraine, but to bully Ukraine into rolling over and just surrendering to an aggressor, that’s really something that can only be explained by a certain part of the electorate and also of the government elites suffering from historical amnesia. We’ve been there, we’ve done that, it failed horribly and it cost 50 million lives.
And I don’t know why we are going down a very dangerous path that leads us to this confrontation and why it is so attractive to a significant part of the electorate. But again, perhaps communication needs to be better, and perhaps the possibility of discussing how to tackle certain challenges.
I see that this is also a result of the pandemic, where there was a problem and it caused this rift in society. At that time, either you were for measures to contain it or against measures to contain it. There was no longer any possibility of finding some kind of compromise between the two factions. But in order to find a compromise, you have to at least acknowledge a certain basis of facts. And again, this is something where I would say you would have to acknowledge that there is an aggressor, you would have to acknowledge that there is an actual virus. And then you can sit down and say we will talk about different approaches and then maybe we will find a compromise. If we fail, we try again.
But if you don’t understand or you don’t have the basic understanding that there is a virus, because you say it’s fake and somebody wants to chip you, and of course it was necessary for Russia to invade Ukraine, because it was orchestrated by the Biden administration, because they wanted Ukraine to join NATO, and things like that, then you don’t have a basis where you can find compromise and where you can discuss. And if you’re outside that, it becomes very, very difficult.
And I see that the Kickl FPÖ is outside this common basis on which Austria and also European democracies are based, and then it’s very difficult to negotiate and to find compromises.
Well, there is a lot of talk at the moment about Europe, about the need for Europe to restructure, to rethink its approach to security and defence, given Trump’s not only statements but also actions on Ukraine – and not only. The French President Macron is the one who talks the loudest about forming a European army and bringing back the concept of strategic autonomy from oblivion. What could be the place of Austria in this new Europe left without American security guarantees, or uncertain about the validity of the political alliances that existed a few months ago, that seemed very stable a few months ago, before Trump’s rise to power?
I think there’s a certain understanding in Austria that it’s impossible to deal with these kinds of challenges alone.
I’ve already mentioned the question of neutrality for Austria, I think it’s a very necessary discussion, but also the possibility to have this discussion also within this coalition at the European level. Because if we look at Article 42.7 in the EU treaties, the mutual defence clause, which respects neutral countries like Austria, I think this is a very good way to integrate. We have other neutral states in the EU, Malta, Ireland, where we have a basis, but again a common understanding of the need to work together.
This is where I see the great challenge: not in neutrality or in Austria. The great challenge that we are facing is in the neighbouring country, or up to two neighbouring countries. I mean here Hungary, that doesn’t recognise that Russian aggression. This is a fundamental threat to each and every one of us living in Europe, and therefore also in the European Union. And that a common approach will be necessary.
We will also have to have a European approach to a nuclear deterrent offer from the side of France to be included, which we already are to some extent in this nuclear deterrent is wonderful. But as we have seen, when governments change, realities can change. And things that we thought were true and reliable for 80 years can be dismantled in the blink of an eye, in a matter of weeks.
And there will be a presidential election in France, where we know that the next president will definitely not be Emmanuel Macron. If that changes, we will be in the same situation as we are now, when it comes to security and defence, of course, but especially when it comes to nuclear deterrence. And here I think the only approach can be a common approach.
I think there is a lot of potential in that. And I would never have thought that I would be arguing for a common investment in European arms production and for an increase and expansion of these initiatives, because I basically believed that after 70 years of peace this was no longer necessary, at least in the EU member states. We always forget that it’s not 70 years of peace for Europe per se. There have been wars on the European continent, even after European integration began. The Western Balkans, the violent break-up of the former Yugoslavia, also the war in Georgia in 2008. We had wars in Moldova in 1992. We have had the ongoing aggression against Ukraine since at least 2014.
I would never have thought that this is something that we really need to discuss in order to increase defence spending within the European Union. But I think that there is a huge potential to organise ourselves together and not just to take us back to a production scheme that maybe happened until the end of the Cold War.
I think we have to adapt to new realities on the battlefield. That means that other types of warfare, we are talking about drones of course, but especially hybrid warfare, the use of artificial intelligence and things like that would be something where we now have an opportunity within the European Union, and I would even say within Europe, to make a leap in development. And so we could turn this challenge that the current US administration is imposing on us into an opportunity.
It would be necessary anyway. And maybe it’s too late now, but if we speed up, maybe we can catch up.
After five months, Austria finally has a government formed by three completely different parties. I could say that this is the ultimate test for a liberal democracy to stop the far-right parties. We’re seeing the archetypal situation: a grand coalition of three parties with completely different class backgrounds and completely different political approaches to key issues, trying to join forces, not to allow democracy to be dismantled by a far-right party. And this is not a fantasy scenario, but something that some of the parties in Austria’s neighbourhood have actually tried to do, and with some success. So having said that, it is even more important to follow the Austrian example and see how liberal democracy can defend itself in our time.
And it will also be very interesting, we live in interesting times, unfortunately, to see how Austria and the whole of Europe adapts to the new challenges, the new challenges of international politics. Sebastian Schäfer from the Institute of the Danube Region in Central Europe was our guest on today’s Cross-Border Talks. We hope to see him again with more good news from Austria, and we hope you enjoyed the talk, and we invite you all to follow the cross-border talks on social media, YouTube and elsewhere, so as not to miss any of the talks and any of our guests.
Thank you Sebastian for being with us today.
Thank you very much, Małgorzata, it was a pleasure as always and I am happy to come back and I can only echo what you said. I think it’s again a challenge to bring together these three different parties, but it’s also an opportunity, and let’s not forget that at the beginning of the traffic light coalition in Germany there was a lot of optimism, and they also brought about changes that resulted from the diversity in that government. Let’s hope they don’t end up like the traffic light coalition.
In any case, I’m glad to be back. All the best, thank you, take care and hopefully see you soon.
Thank you all for watching or listening. Have a great day.
Cover photo: the parliament of Austria (source).
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