Monday, November 12, 2018

Austria and the UN Migration Pact

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian "Babyface" Kurz continues to catch political flak for his announcement that Austria would not agree to sign the non-binding UN's New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants.

President Alexander Van der Bellen called Babyface and his far-right Foreign Minister Karin "Dances With Putin" Kneissl for a formal meeting to express his concern over the announcement. In the Austria context, this is as big deal. As head of state, the President has to formally approve the Chancellor and all his ministers for their posts. He also has the authority to dismiss the government, which would mean forming a new coalition or holding new elections. The President normally makes an intervention to object to a government decision only over a serious constitutional or foreign policy matters.

He also made a Facebook post expressing concern:

The UN Migration Pact is non-binding. It''s purpose is to set a framework for future agreements on immigration policies. In that sense, the pact itself is symbolic. And the rejection of the pact by Trump, Hungary's Viktor Orbán. Austria's Chancellor Babyface, and, as of today (Monday), Bulgaria, are also symbolic acts.

But then a lot of international diplomacy is about sending and interpreting signals. Van Der Bellen's intervention shows that he considers it important and significant. As he indicates in the Facebook statement, the fact that Austria is holding the rotating presidency of the European Council makes it even more sensitive. The pact is schuduled to be signed in December, the last month of Kurz' rotating presidency, which adds to the diplomatic awkwardness of it.

Kurz's government is a coalition of his Christian Democratic ÖVP and the far-right FPÖ (Freedom Party) headed by Vice Chancellor Hans-Christian Strache. Their signature issue in their first year of govenrment has been hostility to immigrants. Rejecting the Migration Pact is consistent with this posture.

The current KurzStrache government has aligned itself politically with the Visegrad states (the Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) and seems to be bending over backwards - or bowing on her knee to Putin (literally!) in the Foreign Minister's case - to show how pro-Russian it is.

This got a bit stickier this past week when Austria arrested someone this past week for alleged spying for Moscow for two decades or more. But at the moment that looks like just a speed bump in the friendship. The FPÖ has had a formal cooperationg agreement with Putin's United Russia party since 2016.

I don't usually make lists of links. But I'm doing it this time:

Posted by at
Labels: ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)