By Filip Milacic (Central European University)

154 days after the election, the Austrian government was formed by the conservative People’s Party (ÖVP), the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) and the liberal Neos. It was the longest government formation negotiation in the country’s history. The three parties put aside their differences, which initially led to the collapse of the negotiations, and Austria finally got a new government on whose work the future development of Austria depends to a large extent. This is seen by many as the last chance for the established parties to deliver and prevent the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) from coming to power, which would be detrimental to Austrian democracy.
As Nancy Bermeo wrote back in 2016, one of the key challenges in combating the current trend of democratic backsliding is its ambiguous nature. In the past, the enemies of democracy were clearly identifiable because they openly displayed their intentions. In contrast, modern aspiring autocrats portray their actions and “reforms” as actually enhancing or renewing democracy. Therefore, distinguishing between democratic and undemocratic actors has become much more challenging. But this has never been the case with FPÖ leader, Herbert Kickl, and other FPÖ officials. Indeed, they have never hidden their contempt for many democratic norms and principles, nor their plans to undermine them. During the September 2024 parliamentary election campaign, Kickl portrayed himself as a “Volkskanzler” (“people’s chancellor”), a term used by the Nazis to describe Adolf Hitler, and promised, if elected, to emulate Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has turned Hungary into an electoral autocracy. Unfortunately, Austrian mainstream parties failed to properly explain to Austrian citizens what this would mean for them in practice. That in a context marked by the absence of critical media and an independent judiciary, the FPÖ, with its history of abuse of power and corruption scandals, is likely to engage in such behavior with impunity – just like its role model Orban.
The three new governing parties are ideologically different, which is why a stable government is not a likely scenario. The FPÖ will be a radical opposition and with its actions it will try to provoke snap elections from which it would likely profit. Kickl and his allies are convinced that the time is on their side because they believe that with Donald Trump’s return to the White House the Western world has entered a new illiberal era. This is why they were unwilling to make compromises with ÖVP during the negotiations to from the government, which was a surprise to many because West European far-right parties usually moderate some of their positions when an opportunity to take power arises. The FPÖ wants the full implementation of its illiberal agenda, and no longer believes that a path to the highest echelons of power needs to be paved with moderation and compromise.
So what are the chances that the new government will succeed in curbing the rise of the FPÖ, which is currently polling at 33% – 4.2% more than in the September 2024 election (the SPÖ and ÖVP, in second place, are both polling at 21%)? The ruling parties have rightly recognised that the issue of immigration is a key motivation for Austrian voters to vote for the FPÖ. As a result, one of their first decisions was to immediately suspend family reunification for asylum seekers and to promise to reduce the number of asylum applications in the country to zero. In other words, the new government has announced that it will continue with an old approach to immigration that hasn’t yielded much in the past. The approach is based on tightening immigration laws, which is seen as the only possible solution to the problem.
However, if the only answer to the immigration problem is to make it harder to immigrate, this only legitimises and strengthens the FPÖ’s narrative that immigration has only brought problems to Austrian society, i.e. that immigrants are a threat to Austrian national identity and security, and that they enjoy undeserved economic benefits. We know that voters are very susceptible to cues from party leaders. And with such an approach, which only casts a negative light on the immigration and negates all the benefits of immigration for Austrian society, the ÖVP, SPÖ, and Neos are telling Austrian voters that the FPÖ was right all along, which in turn only increases FPÖ’s vote share. Instead of dealing with the immigration-related concerns and fears of the Austrian electorate soberly, the ÖVP, SPÖ, and Neos are caving in to extremist FPÖ pressure. This is not to say that there are not many shortcomings in the current immigration system that could be improved. But pointing this out should only be part of the answer. It must be accompanied by a narrative of how immigration has made Austria a better place to live.
Hence, the government’s approach to the immigration issue does not seem very promising. If nothing changes in the future, it is likely that Austrians will soon have their first far-right chancellor since the end of the Second World War.

Photo source: https://apnews.com/article/austria-new-government-coalition-stocker-2d39904a00c33d382b1c94cb021d0c0c