Sebastian Kurz may again be the world’s youngest leader, but he is in truth a gnarled veteran of Austrian politics
IT WAS “THE greatest comeback since Lazarus,” said Werner Kogler. Four months ago Austria’s Green party was not even represented in parliament, having lost its seats in 2017. But on January 7th Mr Kogler, who led the party to a string of electoral successes last year, and three of his comrades were sworn in to government as junior partners to the right-wing Austrian People’s Party . The coalition deal was backed by fully 93% of delegates to a Green congress.
The new government also represents a resurgence of sorts for Sebastian Kurz, the ÖVP’s leader, now reinstated as chancellor at the head of his third coalition. In 2017 Mr Kurz controversially invited the far-right Freedom Party into government, triggering a chaotic period that culminated last May in “Ibizagate,” a burlesque scandal in which FPÖ officials were secretly filmed offering favours to a woman posing as the niece of a Russian oligarch.
The coalition, a first of its type for Austria, helps the 33-year-old Mr Kurz cement his reputation as Austria’s changemaker-in-chief. Yet although he is now restored to his position as the world’s youngest leader, Mr Kurz is in truth a gnarled veteran of Austrian politics, earning over nine years in government a reputation as a clever tactician and political bruiser. Many Greens distrust him; most of the rest, with an eye on the woes of his previous coalition partners, fear him.
For optimists, the new government hits a sweet spot: ambition on climate plus a robust line on migration to blunt the appeal of radicals. Might it spread? In Germany the idea of a conservative-green coalition has circulated for years, and senior members from the respective parties regularly meet for informal chats. Germany’s Greens have already expressed scepticism about their Austrian brethren’s concessions, and its Christian Democrats are more moderate than the ÖVP.
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