Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen announced Sunday that he would meet far-right politician Herbert Kickl as speculation grows that he will ask the Freedom Party leader to form a government.
Van der Bellen made the announcement after meeting Chancellor Karl Nehammer and others at his presidential palace.
Nehammer has announced his intention to resign after coalition talks between his conservative Austrian People's Party and the centre-left Social Democrats collapsed over the budget.
Nehammer has ruled out working with Kickl, but others within his party are less adamant.
Earlier Sunday, the People's Party nominated its general secretary, Christian Stocker, as interim leader, but the president said Nehammer would remain chancellor for now.
In the past, Stocker criticized Kickl, calling him a “security risk” to the country.
In its electoral program entitled “Fortress Austria”, the Freedom Party calls for a “remigration of uninvited foreigners”, to achieve a more “homogeneous” nation through strict border control and the suspension of the right to asylum through a law emergency.
The Freedom Party also calls for an end to sanctions against Russia, is highly critical of Western military aid to Ukraine and wants to withdraw from the European Sky Shield Initiative, a missile defense project launched by Germany. The Freedom Party also signed a friendship agreement in 2016 with Putin's United Russia Party that it now claims has expired.
Kickl has criticized the “elites” in Brussels and has called for some powers to be returned from the European Union to Austria.
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This weekend, Van der Bellen said he had spent several hours talking to key officials, after which he got the impression that “voices within the People's Party that exclude collaboration with the Freedom Party under its leader Herbert Kickl They have become quieter.”
The president said this development has “potentially broken new ground,” prompting him to invite Kickl to a meeting Monday morning.
Kickl's Freedom Party topped the polls in the autumn national elections with 29.2% of the vote, but Van der Bellen tasked Nehammer with forming a new government because no other party was willing to work with Kickl.
That decision drew strong criticism from the Freedom Party and its supporters, with Kickl saying in October that it was “not right or logical” for him not to get a mandate to form a government.
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“We are not responsible for the loss of time, the chaotic situation and the enormous breach of trust that has arisen,” Kickl said Sunday afternoon on social media. “On the contrary: it is clear that the Freedom Party has been and remains the only stable factor in Austrian politics.”
Stocker spoke to reporters on Sunday afternoon and confirmed that his party had “unanimously” appointed him to serve as interim leader. “I feel very honored and happy,” he said.
He also welcomed the president's decision to meet with Kickl and said he now hopes that the leader of the party that was the clear winner of the last election will be tasked with forming a government.
“If we are invited to negotiate to form a government, we will accept this invitation,” Stocker added.
Austria was plunged into political turmoil on Friday after the liberal Neos party withdrew from coalition talks with the People's Party and the Social Democrats.
On Saturday, the two remaining parties, which only have a one-seat majority in Parliament, made another attempt to form a government, but that also failed within hours, and negotiators said they could not agree on how to repair the dispute. problem. budget deficit.
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