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06-01-2025
VIENNA: Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer has said he will resign after talks between the country’s biggest centrist parties on forming a government without the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) collapsed.
The announcement on Saturday comes a day after the liberal Neos party withdrew from the negotiations with Nehammer’s conservative People’s Party (OVP) and the Social Democrats (SPO).
“After the breakoff of the coalition talks I am going to do the following: I will step down both as chancellor and party chairman of the People’s Party in the coming days,” he said.
In a video posted to his social media accounts, the outgoing chancellor said “long and honest” negotiations with the centre-left failed despite a shared interest in fending off the gaining far right.
Nehammer emphasized that his party would not support measures that it believes would harm the economy or new taxes.
He said he would enable “an orderly transition” and railed against “radicals who do not offer a single solution to any problem but only live from describing problems”.
The far-right Freedom Party (FPO) won the first parliamentary election in its history in late September with close to 30 percent of the vote but other parties refused to govern in a coalition with the Eurosceptic, Russia-friendly FPO and its leader Herbert Kickl, so President Alexander Van der Bellen in late October tasked Nehammer to form a coalition.
Nehammer’s announcement comes after he also failed to reach an understanding with the Neos party.
Neos leader Beate Meinl-Reisinger said progress was impossible and that “fundamental reforms” had not been agreed upon.
After the chancellor’s exit, the OVP is expected to convene to discuss potential successors. The political landscape remains uncertain in Austria, with no immediate possibility of forming a stable government due to ongoing differences between the parties.
The president may now appoint another leader and an interim government as the parties try to find a way out of the deadlock.
The next government in Austria faces the challenge of having to save between 18 to 24 billion euros ($18.5-24.7bn), according to the European Commission.
The country’s economy has been in a recession for the past two years, is experiencing rising unemployment and its budget stands at 3.7 percent of gross domestic product above the European Union’s limit of 3 percent.
In October 2024, Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen has tasked Chancellor Karl Nehammer, leader of the conservative People’s Party (OVP), with forming a government over the objections of the far-right Freedom Party (FPO), which won last month’s general election.
The eurosceptic, Russia-friendly FPO came out top in the election on September 29 for the first time in its history but with about 29 percent of the vote, it would need to assemble a coalition to command a majority in parliament and form a government.
FPO leader Herbert Kickl has said he would be chancellor in an FPO-led government but other parties have ruled out governing with him. Van der Bellen, who oversees the formation of governments, said those parties had stood by their positions on that. “The parliamentary election on September 29 is not a race in which the party that crosses the finish line first automatically gets to form the government,” the 80-year-old president said in a televised address on Tuesday.
“If a party wants to govern alone, it must clear the 50 percent hurdle. It is not sufficient to reach 10, 20 or 30 percent.” (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
