'Brave' Cameron backed by Austrian far-right

(VIENNA) - British Prime Minister David Cameron has been widely pilloried in Europe for his veto at last week's EU summit, but on Sunday he won backing from an unlikely quarter: Austria's eurosceptic far-right.

"We are now in a very dangerous situation. The cat is out of the bag. An EU superstate is being created with no regard for people's wishes," Austrian Freedom Party (FPOe) head Heinz-Christian Strache told the Oesterreich tabloid.

"I think it was brave of ... Cameron to have no truck with this superstate," he said.

Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann "should have pressed for a division (of the eurozone) between a strong north and a weak south. ... Unfortunately Faymann was too much of a coward."

A Gallup poll published by Oesterreich on Sunday showed the FPOe, in government between 2000-06 under late party leader Joerg Haider, in second place on 27 percent behind Faymann's centre-left Social Democrats on 29 percent.

Faymann's coalition partners, the centre-right People's Party (OeVP), scored 23 percent, while the Greens were on 13 percent. The next Austrian general elections are due in 2013.

Austrian central bank governor Ewald Nowotny said meanwhile that Britain's refusal at the summit to agree to tough new budget rules enshrined in a modified European Union treaty had created a "two-speed Europe."

"I think, however, that we can defeat this crisis because a new way of thinking has set in," Nowotny told the Kronen-Zeitung daily.