President Alexander Van der Bellen's decision to meet with Freedom Party leader Herbert Kickl, following the collapse of other coalition talks, has sparked protests and raised concerns about Austria's future direction.
Reversal of position by Austria ’s president sets stage for nationalist, Eurosceptic Freedom Party led by Herbert Kickl to be senior coalition partner. People demonstrate in Vienna on Monday against right-wing extremism during a meeting between Austria n federal president Alexander Van der Bellen and Freedom Party chairman Herbert Kickl. Photograph: Max Slovencik/EPA Postwar Austria ’s political centre has been crumbling for 25 years.
But on Monday morning hundreds of protesters gathered in central Vienna to witness what they fear is the final landslide. From students to grannies, the crowd braved zero-degree weather with angry shouts and urgent banner slogans: “We don’t want an right-wing extremist Austria” and “All together against fascism”. “The democratic centre in Austria has been hollowed out and fallen away and we don’t know what’s coming next,” said Monica Salzer, founder of the Omas Gegen Rechts – Nannies against Nazis – movement. The focus of protesters’ fury: talks in the nearby Hofburg palace between Austrian president Alexander Van der Bellen and Herbert Kickl, the 56-year-old leader of the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ).Welcome to Hellas: Greece is not just a big holiday resort On September 29th his party scored a historic election victory, finishing above 28 per cent, only to be excluded by the president from coalition talks because no other party would work with them. Some 99 days later, following the collapse of talks for an alternative coalition, Van der Bellen summoned Kickl to the Hofburg palace for a meeting he never wanted to have. “It has always been my constitutional obligation to seek a government with a 50 per cent-plus majority in parliament,” said Van der Bellen after two hours of talks about Austria’s considerable economic and security challenges as well as concerns about its media freedo
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