How much staying power does the current Austrian government have?

Gernot Bauer takes a look at the political situation of Austria's year-old in the current issue of the weekly Profil, "Partnerqual." But, surprising for Profil, it reads like a beat-sweetening puff piece. Although they are pretty up-front about it. Bauer explains that he's using an explanatory framework promoted by Chancellor Sebastian Kurz' "turquoise" faction, which aims at a preferred conclusion: "Diese Koalition wird wohl neun weitere Jahre bestehen" ("This coalition will surely stay in place for nine more years"), i.e., the same coalition would be re-elected in 2022. In other words, Full disclosure; this article is stenography.

The national coalition is composed of Kurz' conservative Christian Democratic People's (ÖVP, party color black) and Vice President Hans-Christian Strache's far-right "Freedom" Party (FPÖ, party color blue). During the election in 2017, Kurz formally ran as the head of his own electoral list, which used the party color turquoise. So the national coalition is often referred to as turquoise-blue. But the last year seems to indicate that Kurz loyalists may consistite a more enduring "turquoise" faction. There is no separate formal "turquoise" group in the Parliament. One distinctive feature of the turquoise party group around Kurz that disguishes them from the larger ÖVP is that Kurz in the election campaign and during his first year as Chancellor has appeared to be as intensely anti-immigrant as the xenophoblic FPÖ.

The coalition line that Bauer rephrases for Profil readers is that the two parties have a clever division of roles that works wonderfully in three different ways: new (turquoise)/old (FPÖ), warm (turquoise)/cold (FPÖ), and light (turquoise)/dark (FPÖ).

The so-called "warm/cold" two-step is the most substantial. What this talking point means is that the ÖVP gets to enact conservative "pro-business" measures off the stock neoliberal economic agenda: lower wages, weakening unions, curring back social programs like aid to large families and programs to protect women's rights. The FPÖ gets a significant number of working-class votes. (Exactly how the Austrian estimates define "working class" is something that I've got to drill into more one of these days.) The FPÖ is a rightwing party and in stereotypical Mussolini fashion are happy to get on board with pet demands of the "business community." If the ÖVP had formed a coalition with the social democrats (SPÖ), they would have probably been less enthusiastic than the FPÖ in going along with some of those things.

The "new/old" contrast the coalition brags about via the Profil article is pretty much PR fluff. Kurz is famous for his "Message Control", usually mentioned in the English phrase. And the whole "turquoise" posturing in 2017 started as a way to give a slick new PR spin to the stodgy old ÖVP. Kurz himself is 32 years old, so it's an obvious advantage to promote a NEW! IMPROVED! image. Bauer uses it to explain that the coalition partners are practicing normal politics in the way they wheel and deal over positions. How that fits the "new" posture isn't really clear. But it's mainly fluff, anyway.

The third contrast of light/dark is even stranger than new/old as a talking point in this context. What is comes down to is that hte FPÖ continually - as in weekly or even daily - make various kinds of far-right provocations, to which Kurz and his turquoise associates either ignore or minimize them.

Blithely predicting nine more years in office is an obvious pitch to create an air of permanence and inevitability to the current coalition. Why anyone else should take it seriously is not at all clear.

Here are a few important considerations to keep in mind when making nine-year projections on Austrian national politics:

• A lot can change between now and 2022, e.g., a new international recession, which in terms of the average length of past business cycles is overdue.
• The FPÖ is dominanted by its "Burschenschaft" (far-right) wing headed by Vice Chancellor Strache. Lots of these people have loony and obnoxious ideas. And they will keep on expressing them.
• The single most dramatic political misstep by the turquoise-brown blue coalition so far was a highly unusual raid by a Vienna police unit headed by an office-holdling FPÖ politician (!?!) on the main federal internal-security agency, the BVT, in which they took highly sensitive information, done at the instigation of Interior Minister Herbert Kickl (FPÖ). The Washington Post has reported that other countries are restricting their cooperation with the Austrian BVT as a result, fearing that the BVT cannot be trusted as before with protecting sources and methods. This is something that could seriously compromise Austrian national security in defending against terrorism, organized crime, and espionage. A parliamentary investigation is underway. It already appears that some senior officials have been less than straightforward about the motivations for the raid.
• The FPÖ made a formal cooperation agreement in 2016 with Putin's United Russia party that is still in effect. This reflects their ideological affinity for Putinism, including Islamophobia, ethnic nationalism, xenophobia, and hostility to the EU. Even though the FPÖ insists it's "pro-European." Which I suppose is true, especially if you take "European" to mean conservative Christian white people in Europe. This is something that both many Austrian voters and formal allies find problematic. Espcially because ...
• The KurzStrache government has been downright embarassing in their diplomatic deferral to Russia and Putin. The Austrian public isn't as anti-Russian as Polish voters. But most are far from being Putin idolators.
• Kurz needs to rely on Message Control, because as a retail politician, he's kind of a stiff. Earlier this month, he embarrased himself a town hall meeting in the state of Vorarlberg when he was challenged over his immigration policy. Responding to unexpected critical or challenging questions is a skill that most politicians in his position have mastered better than he seems to have done.
• The main opposition party, the SPÖ, has been in turmoil for a couple of years, including the unexpected resignation this year of party chief Christian Kern. This has inhibited their ability to mount focused opposition. This past weekend, the SPÖ elected a new party chairperson, Pamela Rendi-Wagner, the first woman to head the party. How well she handles her role as opposition leader of course remains to be seen. But she can also make use of "New" branding for the SPÖ.
• The turquoise-blue anti-immigration policy is meeting some significant pushback from the Green Party and also from within the ÖVP. The latter was what Kurz ran into in Vorarlberg. But even FPÖ voters are not enthusiastic about every anti-immigrant measure. The business-oriented ÖVP is getting pressure from business leaders to ease access for qualified immigrants to fill skilled positions currrently under-filled. And not only skilled positions. Some lesser-skilled positions also are experiencing shortages, notably home care providers.
• Immigration can be a volatile issue. But the official turquoise-blue rhetoric against immigrants insists they should be "integrated," i.e., assimilated. But their policies are also clearly aimed at making integration harder, as well. For instance, they established a policy that asylum-seekers in job apprenticeships for jobs for which workers are in short supply would not be allowed to complete their apprenticeships and that no consideration in evaluating asylum requests should be taken for the fact that someone had finished and apprenticeship and was clearly "integrating." Even half or more of FPÖ voters don't approving of those obviously xenophobic and mean-spirited policies.
• Also, the nationalist slogan "close the borders" may be exciting in the abstract. In practice, for Austria it would mean some seriously horrible traffic jams and some significant economic disruption for Austria and other EU countries, as well. A major commercial traffice route passes through the Austrian state of Tyrol. The national government's loose talk about closing borders in the summer was a reminder that it's a useful slogan, as long as people aren't required to think too much about the practical consequences. Symbolic posturing only goes so far.

There is an American cliche that a week is an eternity in politics (a favorite for commentator Mark Shields). A lot can happen in a year. Even more in nine years.