Letter from Blonay No. 5

THE EUROPEAN UNION AND AUSTRIA

The consequences of precipitate action based on faulty analysis

On July 12th, the President of the European Court of Human Rights appointed three "wise men" to study the situation in Austria with a view to possibly recommending the lifting of EU sanctions against that country. Many people reading this news item may have wondered what it was all about, having already forgotten or never heard of what caused the sanctions to be decided in the first place. A short recall of the corresponding events may therefore be of use before we attempt an assessment:


The scenario

In October 1999, general elections held in Austria produced a parliament in which the two parties of the centre-left government coalition, the Socialists and Peoples' Party (Christian Democrats) lost many votes most of which went to the rightist "Freedom Party" led by the populist politician Jörg Haider. This party was close to obtaining the second place at the expense of the Peoples' Party. As before, a coalition had to be formed and the two partners of the outgoing one had little wish to continue working together. Thus the Peoples' Party took the initiative of entering into negotiations with the Freedom Party to set up a new centre-right coalition.

Told in these words, all this sounds perfectly normal and impeccably democratic. The long lifespan of the previous coalition actually made a change in alignments desirable. What upset outsiders was the far right populism of the freedom party's leader, Mr. Haider. In the course of his political career he has made a number of statements which could be interpreted as indicating some sympathies with fascist views. During the election campaign the parties of the outgoing coalition had used this image in order to try to frighten voters away from Mr. Haider and his party. In so doing they however achieved the exact opposite. All these developments alarmed outside observers and in particular governmental circles of EU countries. One reason for this was that several of these countries have far-right parties of their own that either were formerly fascist or on the contrary newly play with fascist ideas. Thus the possibility of an apparently similar party becoming the partner in a new coalition to govern EU member Austria sent shock waves through both social democratic and conservative circles in the countries concerned. They warned Austria that a centre-right coalition as envisaged was not acceptable under EU standards and that its setting up would have serious consequences.

In Austria itself there was also a lot of opposition to a government including the Freedom Party, although analysts had long shown that those who voted newly for that party were mostly former Socialist and Peoples' Party supporters disaffected with the lack of attention paid to their worries by the outgoing coalition. When it became clear that the centre-right government could not be averted, and that new elections would simply produce a landslide victory of the Freedom Party, extraordinary precautions were taken to convince the Austrians as well as the Europeans that the new government would fully adhere to the ideals of democracy, human rights and European integration. At the behest of President Klestil, the partners signed a written undertaking in this sense before the government could be sworn in.

One would have thought that after all this the new government of Austria would be given time to show that it was willing to abide by its undertakings in good faith through the policies it was to produce and implement. In Austria itself, after some initial shows of public hostility, this is more or less what happened. The fact that Mr. Haider himself sought no position in the government and later even gave up the chairmanship of his party certainly helped. In its first few months in office the new government has proven capable of tackling problems efficiently and initiating reforms that for far too long had remained in abeyance.

At the level of EU governments however, developments were very different. When the outspoken threats from many sides had failed to prevent the new Austrian government from being formed, it was felt that repressive action had to be taken. Bilateral relations of EU countries with Austria were frozen and initially Austrian members of government were given the cold shoulder when they turned up to participate in EU meetings. To their great credit, the head and members of the Austrian government took such snubs calmly and failed to react with hostility. The performance of the Austrian government so far has not given the slightest cause for alarm. On the contrary, in many ways it has proven more pro-EU and cooperative than its predecessor.

Having most obviously painted themselves into a corner, the EU governments now are seeking to get out of this without too much loss of face. Hence the appointment of the three wise men (Mr. Ahtissari, a former President of Finland, Mr. Oreja, a former foreign minister of Spain, secretary-general of the Council of Europe and commissioner of the EU and Mr. Frowein, an international law professor from Germany) who quite obviously will find nothing to criticise in Austria's behaviour under its new government and little to indicate that things might change for the worse. If the Austrian government keeps its admirable restraint and if Mr. Haider refrains from making provocative statements, one can expect sanctions to be lifted quietly within a rather short time.


Assessing the "Freedom Party"

There can be no doubt that this party originated from the far right, as did similar parties with comparable names in other European countries. Some of its founders and particularly Mr. Haider did not hide their xenophobic and even sometimes racist views. The party also was against Austria joining the EU and opposed the temporary admission of fugitives from the conflicts in former Yugoslavia. Mr. Haider made some unsavoury statements regarding practices of Nazi Germany and its Waffen SS. His views are shared by several leading party figures some of whom were rejected by the Austrian President as members of the new coalition government.

However, the enormous electoral success of the Freedom Party does not stem from these attitudes. Very cleverly, it has turned itself into the champion of the simple workers, the downtrodden and the poor against the insensitivity of the ruling coaliton regarding their worries and problems. It also promised to fight the nepotism, favouritism, corruption and immobilism that had developed during the long reign of the Socialist-Christian Democrat coalition, which increasingly felt unable to tackle any major problem. In order to further attract voters from that coalition, the Freedom Party moderated its language and portrayed itself as the only true champion of an active Austrian participation in the EU. Warnings from abroad against the dire consequences of voting for the Freedom Party, including from the foreign minister of Israel, only produced a backlash among voters who refused to be told by foreigners what to decide.

The very success at consecutive elections has modified the base of the Freedom Party and turned it into broader coalition of neo-liberal, conservative and rightist elements. Whereas in Switzerland for instance extreme rightist parties lost their voters to a moderate right wing party which then had to suffer radicalisation from the transfuges, in Austria the inflow of socialist and christian democratic voters has watered down the more extreme attitudes of the original Freedom Party. One should not forget either that this party ruled for a few years in the 1980s in coalition with the Socialist Party, before Mr. Haider became its leader, without arousing adverse reactions abroad. Therefore the comparison made in some circles with Hitler's electoral success in Germany in 1933 completely misses the point. Germany was then in disarray and suffering from economic collapse. Austria today is a prosperous and self-confident nation which simply seeks a way out of years of political immobilism.


Assessing the EU reaction

If one listened to the initial statements of President Chirac and the top politicians in Belgium, Portugal and even Germany, only strong action by the European Union could prevent Austria from falling prey to a fascist dictatorship. They sufficiently frightened less sanguine Union members to achieve unanimous condemnation of Austria by its 14 partners and the decision to adopt sanctions with a view to forcing it to abandon its current government coalition.

It is doubtful whether in the absence of any discernible violation of EU law and on the mere basis of suspicions and prejudices, the decision to have recourse to sanctions had any valid legal basis under existing EU treaties. Austria might actually have been in a position to challenge the decision before the European Court but its government very wisely abstained from doing this. Instead it chose to show the Union members by its behaviour and performance how very wrong they were in their assessment.

As a result, gradually members of the Austrian government took up once more their seat in EU meetings, benefitting moreover from the fact that the Chancellor and his foreign minister are both from the Peoples' (Christian Democrat) Party in the coalition and have long-standing relationships with their colleagues from the days when their party was junior partner in the previous coalition in Vienna.

As heads of state and government find it difficult to confess to having been mistaken, a simple return to normality by lifting the sanctions against Austria was hardly feasible, especially as the President of France, which is currently chairing the Union, was one of their main promoters. Hence the way out found in appointing three "wise men" to advise the Union, whose findings are in fact a forgone conclusion.


Lessons for the future

The likelihood of getting out of the Austrian conundrum without too much damage done should not prevent the EU from trying to draw some lessons from its mistakes for the future. As indicated, there are other European countries with strong rightist parties, in particular Italy, where a rightist coalition under Mr. Berlusconi might easily win the next elections. In France, the Gaullist party of President Chirac shows signs of disintegration, from which far right parties might benefit. On the other hand, former communists are a powerful party in Italy, their leader having even led a government for nearly two years. In Germany the successors of the former communist party of Eastern Germany are about to challenge the governing Social Democrats and even Greens on the left. With the coming admission of members from Eastern Europe there is a strong likelihood that the EU will have to live with governments led by former communists.

So far, and rightly so, there has not been a similar outcry as with regard to Austria against former communist parties. Indeed, most of them have long abandoned their marxist-leninist views and have turned into perfectly respectable democratic parties of the left. There is no reason why similar developments should not be possible on the right of the political spectrum. In fact the Popular Party currently in power in Spain has evolved from franquism to centrist Christian Democrat positions and its being voted into office some four years ago caused not even a ripple in EU circles.

The EU, which is an association of democratic countries, should be very careful in situations where parties have won perfectly clean and democratic elections, even if their apparent or real ideology raises some doubts about their true commitment to pluralist democracy. Mere suspicions should never suffice for ostracism, which, in most cases, is likely to be counter-productive anyway. Not many countries and governments are likely to show such admirable forbearance as Austria has.

Blonay, July 2000.