Decade after sanctions, Austria far-right regains potency

(VIENNA) - Ten years after Joerg Haider's party entered government, prompting European Union sanctions against Austria, the far-right is back as a political force and more extreme than before, observers say.

"Its chances to enter government are the same as they were in the late 1990s, it just needs one of the current ruling parties to make it possible," Anton Pelinka, a political scientist at Innsbruck University, told AFP.

After the current coalition ends its term in 2013, "the temptation will be very strong again (to bring the Freedom Party into government)," added Hubert Sickinger from the University of Vienna.

Austria's conservatives sent shockwaves around Europe on February 4, 2000, when they formed a coalition with the far-right FPOe of Joerg Haider, a man who had praised the Waffen SS and the Third Reich's employment policies, and described Nazi concentration camps as "disciplinary camps."

Brussels imposed diplomatic sanctions, cutting bilateral ties and shutting Austrian politicians out during EU meetings, while Israel recalled its ambassador to Vienna.

Eventually, the FPOe, having failed to impress as a ruling party, saw its support fall to 10 percent in 2002 snap elections, from 27 percent in 1999.

"It seemed like they had been demystified, but if you look at them now... this impression has evaporated," according to Sickinger.

"The far-right, especially the FPOe, is again above 20 percent in opinion polls," and it is especially popular among young voters.

The only alternative to the Social Democrats (SPOe) and conservative OeVP -- much like in 1999 -- the Freedom Party now has the added benefit of a previous spell in government.

The 2000-2006 coalition broke a taboo and "made far-right alliances socially acceptable," noted Pelinka.

On February 4, 2000, the new OeVP-FPOe cabinet had been forced to take an underground tunnel to the swearing-in ceremony to avoid crowds of protesters in front of the Imperial Palace, armed with eggs and tomatoes.

But within weeks, "the government succeeded in depicting the EU's measures as 'sanctions against Austria'" and earlier polarisation turned into "something like broad patriotic support for the government," argued Pelinka.

While there were calls in some quarters to boycott Austrian ski resorts, the sanctions were dropped within seven months and have not been used since, despite other far-right factions being brought into government elsewhere in Europe, such as in Italy and Slovakia.

International pressure ensured however that Haider never held a government post in Vienna, leaving instead the vice-chancellorship to Susanne Riess-Passer.

Haider, who was governor of southern province Carinthia, died after he lost control of his car in October, 2008. An investigation found the married 58-year-old drank too much while at a gay club before getting behind the wheel.

If the FPOe returns to power after the next elections, experts agree it will more likely be in a coalition with the conservatives again, than with the Social Democrats.

But they warn the party is not the same as it was 10 years ago.

"It is a completely different party today... the party I led at the time, does not exist anymore," Riess-Passer told Austrian newspapers over the weekend.

"Today's FPOe is more right-wing than Haider's FPOe in 1999, and more outspokenly so," added Sickinger.

"They've adopted all the issues that other far-right parties now have in Europe, especially anti-Islam policies. That was not yet the case under Haider."

For Wolfgang Schuessel, the conservative chancellor who brought the far-right into government in 2000, "anyone who is democratically elected to sit in parliament, cannot be shut out."

But he was not in a hurry to see the present FPOe and its leader Heinz-Christian Strache in office, he told the daily Der Standard.

"The question is: is it a partner you can trust?... I have my doubts."