Weaknesses of the Kurz government in Austria

I'm re-upping the points I made about the vulnerabilities of the now-defunct Austrian government of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) and Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache (FPÖ-Ibiza) in an earlier post, How much staying power does the current Austrian government have? 11/27/2018.

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A lot can change between now and 2022 [I wrote in November], e.g., a new international recession, which in terms of the average length of past business cycles is overdue.

The FPÖ is dominated 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-holding 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. Especially 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 [November], he embarrassed himself in 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.