The leaders of the conservative People’s Party (OVP) and the Austrian Social Democrats (SPO) met this Saturday at the headquarters of the country’s Chancellery to try to save the coalition talks, on the brink of collapse after the announcement yesterday by the centrist party of The New Austria and Liberal Forum (Neos, by its acronym in German).
The talks are led by Austrian Chancellor and People’s Party leader Karl Nehammer and Austrian Social Democratic Party chairman Andreas Babler. Neither the content of the dialogue will be announced nor will there be a subsequent press conference, as sources close to the meeting have informed the country’s public radio and television station, the ORF.
The departure of Neos from the negotiations is about to break a process that began in mid-November and that could have certified a government never before seen in Austria, with the party with the most votes in the September legislative elections, the far-right Freedom Party (FPO), is being completely ignored by the “cordon sanitaire” that the rest of the formations have imposed on it.
A Government formed only by Social Democrats and Conservatives would obtain a very slim majority in Parliament that could count, however, on the specific support of Neos for certain issues, as the leader of the outgoing party, Beate Meinl-Reisinger, clarified this past Friday.
“They have no will to think beyond the day after the elections, and thus it is impossible to create a common vision for Austria 20 years from now,” Meinl-Reisinger explained during her exit speech before criticizing the existing “budget hole.” right now and the absence of consensus when it comes to covering it.
ORF sources recognize that the loss of Neos represents the absence of a formation that acted as a “gearing mechanism” between conservatives and social democrats, whose positions are frankly far apart, although they have in their favor that they have been in dialogue for decades in the Austrian political landscape. and that both agree that the FPO should not have even the slightest room for maneuver.