By Viktor Sukup
Recent regional elections gave important gains to the right-populist Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ), which has now roughly the same voters’ potential as each of the two traditional parties, the social democratic SPÖ and the conservative ÖVP. Both parties have mostly governed together since 1945, but their combined electoral strength has been steadily declining since the 80s, from nearly 95% to around 50% today. The FPÖ, like French FN or Dutch PVV, with which they formed, in June, a new group in the European Parliament, vociferously condemns the EU and immigration, especially from Islamic countries.
While Austria’s First Republic (1918-38) suffered acute political tensions, unresolved social problems and considerable economic difficulties linked to the disintegration of the Empire, hyper-inflation and the world crisis, the Second Republic born in the ruins of World War II was an extraordinary success story, at least in economic terms. It succeeded remarkably well in compensating its inherited structural weaknesses -after 1918 Austria had been cut off its industrialized Czech and agrarian Hungarian hinterlands and become a landlocked country- and its geographically marginal position close to the Iron Curtain. From quite below the Western European average in the 50s and 60s, its per capita income rose to above that average in the following decades. If Germany had its “economic miracle”, Austria’s was maybe even more impressive. A remarkable stability, based on social partnership, produced an advanced welfare state. Austria also became a frontrunner in ecological concerns and decided to reject the production of nuclear energy.
If Germany had its “economic miracle”, Austria’s was maybe even more impressive. A remarkable stability, based on social partnership, produced an advanced welfare state.
In world politics, Austria’s neutrality allowed Vienna to become the third UN city alongside New York and Geneva. The only international conflict, with Italy about South Tyrol/Alto Adige, was resolved peacefully. Chancellor Kreisky’s (1970-83) foreign policy also made serious efforts to bring Israelis and Palestinians to a better mutual understanding. After the Cold War, the geopolitical obstacle to an accession to the European Community was lifted, and what most Austrians wished became a reality in a few years.
But in 1986, the new FPÖ leader Jörg Haider had given it a notably more rightist orientation and a rapidly growing popularity confronting the newly formed SPÖ-ÖVP “Big Coalition”. From 5-6%, its score all along the decades since World War II, the party jumped to 10, 15 and 20% of the votes, and in 1999 it arrived slightly ahead of the ÖVP with 27%. Were so many Austrians unrepentant Neonazis? The correct answer is hardly a clear “yes”.
Other factors led to a growing dissatisfaction with both traditional parties like the rejection of a rapidly growing immigrant population, as well as from Turkey and the relations with the European Community.
Haider’s charisma and populist rhetoric were important elements, as was the absence of a serious Vergangenheitsbewältigung in Austria: contrary to Germany, no official effort had clarified the Austrians’ important responsibilities in war and holocaust crimes, and few felt guilty of having been, in their majority, active or passive collaborators of Hitler’s regime. Haider’s rejection of any change of mind was certainly a point which gained him sympathies.
Other factors led to a growing dissatisfaction with both traditional parties like the rejection of a rapidly growing immigrant population–principally from disintegrating neighboring Yugoslavia and more particularly its Muslim regions–as well as from Turkey and the relations with the European Community. Both dominant parties were favorable to a rapid accession, while the FPÖ took a right-populist anti-EC position. There exists the contradictory “typical Austrian” twin habits of criticizing everything, rather superficially -“raunzen” in Austrian German- and of submitting oneself quite easily to an established authority, all this combined with a strong tendency to opportunism. So the rising populism capitalized successfully the pre-existing mentalities of many Austrians, including an often uncritical attitude towards Nazism, and different frustrations with government and immigration as well as diffuse concerns with the EC to which the country was heading …
From euphoria to deception: how many Austrians turned Europhobic
In 1994, 66% of Austrians voted for accession. They saw full integration into the Western European bloc, which was going to absorb the former Soviet bloc countries, a step forwards. Austria was once more a country in the center of Europe, and its perspectives were very promising in the context of some kind of reconstitution of the historic Danube-Mitteleuropa-space…
Just before accession, Austria’s per capita GDP was marginally lower than that of reunified Germany -which it later surpassed- and besides that country only Denmark and Luxemburg had higher ones. But as French economist, Green leader and future MEP Alain Lipietz observed in 1988, Austria, Switzerland and other outsider showed clearly better economic indicators like growth and unemployment during the 80s, partially at least because they had maintained more instruments for an autonomous economic policy: less than a “euro-sclerosis” there was rather a “EC-sclerosis”. Chancellor Kreisky’s policies from 1970 to 1983, the Second Republic’s welfare institutions, beneficial commercial relations with the Soviet bloc -and later the newly established “market economies” at its borders-, and some other factors had allowed Austria to become one of the most prosperous countries of the world. Its largest enterprise VÖEST-Alpine had made a successful mutation from a simple steelmaking to a technology group producing not only special steels but also high-value industrial equipment, and many high-tech companies found convenient “niches” in European and world markets; even the automotive branch became, without national carmaker brands, a small net foreign exchange earner. An all-year-tourism brings close to 10% of GDP. Vienna, once the melting pot of the Empire, had become an attractive city for tourists and congress organizers and also for numerous immigrants, today around 15% of its population, and arrives now in all ratings first or second in the list of “cities of the world with the best quality of life”.
But an increasingly important proportion of the citizens began to fear, not without some reasons, that EC membership could endanger social progress, democratic institutions and environment. The accelerated integration into Western Europe, with a strongly enhanced influence of the main partner Germany, the opening of the Eastern neighbor countries, “Americanization” and globalization altogether combined to bring important new dependency mechanisms and many uncertainties for a small country of just over eight millions inhabitants.
An increasingly important proportion of the citizens began to fear, not without some reasons, that EC membership could endanger social progress, democratic institutions and environment.
These concerns, far from disappearing in the years after EU accession, were now a central factor of relations with the EU, as the rising right-populism became a highly influential actor. The very populist main daily Kronenzeitung, similar to Germany’s Bild and read by nearly half of Austrian newspaper readers, efficiently promoted the impression that the EU was a source of widespread corruption, irresponsibility, inefficiency and undeserved privileges, and that the country, far from benefiting from it, was losing a lot of money and independence by its membership. In 2000, after inconclusive “Red-Black” negotiations for a new “Big Coalition”, a “Black-Blue” ÖVP-FPÖ government was formed to join the traditional right-center party with that “Blue” one, both scoring now around 27% of the votes.
European institutions and governments like those of France and Belgium, themselves confronted with rising right-populist movements, marginalized the new Austrian government, and many Austrians felt quite undeserved the rather ineffective ”sanctions” which were soon again lifted. The “Black-Blue” government showed that FPÖ ministers were certainly not more efficient nor less corrupt than those of the traditional parties, but rather the contrary. So the party lost many votes, but facing the new “Red-Black”-Coalition -now only representing some 60-65% of the total votes, with the SPÖ a few points ahead of the ÖVP- rebuilt in 2006, even if it suffered Haider’s accidental death, it once more became a vote-attracting machine. Exactly as parties like the French Front National did in recent years, the FPÖ turned increasingly anti-immigrant and specifically anti-Muslim, as well as radically and demagogically Europhobic, while putting its original anti-Semitism on the backburner.
EU membership certainly contributed to boost Austrian economy which continues to be at the top of member states, with one of the most dynamic industries and lowest unemployment rates. The EU enlargement to countries like Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia, where Austrian capital inflows were important, was very beneficial, but constituted also a dangerous temptation for its banks: their unleashed speculation led to big profits in these new “market economies” and later to important losses. Some scandals, like in Haider’s Carinthia province, showed, in fact, that there was hardly less financial irresponsibility than in the Mediterranean countries. And like in Germany, the relatively low euro exchange rate gave without doubt a boost to Austrian exports relative to a hypothetically maintained own currency which would have considerably appreciated. Austria also benefited, like Germany, from the extremely low interest rates for “virtuous” Eurozone countries, partially as a result of the very problems of the EU South. Finally, its close connection with neighboring countries, where Austrian investments are important, gives the country a considerable advantage in its competition with other EU countries…
The country hesitates more than ever, in its complicated and ambivalent relationship with ten times more populous Germany and the EU, between its old tendencies to feel superior to all others and to suffer at the same time from a serious inferiority complex.
But general feelings turned more and more critical anti-EU, especially when the world crisis began and was later exacerbated by Greek and others’ financial breakdowns. Already in 2004, the very popular anti-EU daily Kronenzeitung ran a successful campaign for a dissident ex socialist member of the European Parliament, Hans-Peter Martin, who created ex nihilo a new party and obtained, thanks to this strong media coverage, around 14% on a purely EU-critical program. The open Schengen borders are particularly sensitive in Vienna, at around 60 kilometers of three former Soviet bloc countries’ frontiers, and they are made responsible for a slightly rising -even if still very low- criminality rate in Austria. The country hesitates more than ever, in its complicated and ambivalent relationship with ten times more populous Germany and the EU- of which it represents slightly more than 1.5%-, between its old tendencies to feel superior to all others and to suffer at the same time from a serious inferiority complex. And the ideology predominant at the EU level tends clearly to reinforce neoliberal thinking and practice in Austria, with consequences often contrary to the social progress obtained after World War II. But more surrender of national sovereignty to a kind of “federal” government at EU level will be necessary for the Eurozone and even the EU to survive. One element is the bank secrecy which has come under increasing fire from the EU, and that pressure contributes probably to Europhobic tendencies in the country, even if its government can rightly point to other places in Western Europe which disserve much more the label of “fiscal paradise” …
All these elements encourage the FPÖ, while the traditional parties have few adequate answers to present challenges. Today -despite its globally successful EU membership and relative well-being- Austria is one of the most “Europhobic” countries and rightist populism scores the highest proportion for any such political option in Europe, except maybe in France and Hungary. After the recent regional elections, SPÖ and FPÖ formed a coalition in one of these two provinces, breaking a longstanding SPÖ taboo. In forthcoming elections in autumn, the “Red-Green” coalition should keep the local government of traditionally “Red” Vienna, but even there the FPÖ is expected to consolidate itself as the main opposition.
World War I started around Austria, and the one responsible for World War II was born and raised in Austria. Today, a hypothetical third one would not start from here. But the rise of extremism, as embodied in Austria’s FPÖ with around one quarter of the votes, contributes to disintegrate the rudderless European Union, with probably far-reaching catastrophic consequences.
Viktor Sukup is an economist and politologist born in Vienna who specializes in European affairs. He was a professor of international economy at the University of Buenos Aires in the 90s and a European Commission official from 2000 to 2012. He is the author of half a dozen books on Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean.
