© REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw

Charismatic, young, and still remarkably popular at home―and abroad: Sebastian Kurz of the right-wing Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) increasingly sees himself as a mediator between the Europe’s various right-wing movements. His aim of uniting the continent’s right-wing populists under one umbrella has placed Austria in the once-familiar role of axle between East and West.

Before 1989, Vienna was perched just beyond the fringes of the Iron Curtain, serving as a hub for dialogue between the Soviet Union and Western powers; now, it facilitates dialogue between right-wing extremists and the more moderate, traditionally center-right parties across Europe. The Austrian Chancellor has managed to garner respect from right-wing euroskeptic governments in Hungary and Italy and keep the doors of dialogue open to the European establishment in Berlin and Paris, allowing him to serve as a go-between.

At least that’s the image that Kurz is keen to present, repeatedly and with pride, especially since his country took over the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union in July. The conservative US ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, recently dubbed Kurz the “rock star” of the European neocons―and rightly so.

Kurz, however, has taken neoconservatism in Austria a step further: after his party won the largest share in the country’s national elections last year, he promptly formed a coalition government with the far-right Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ) and its leader, Heinz-Christian Strache. The FPÖ secured key ministerial posts, including the foreign ministry, the labor and social affairs ministry, and the transport and interior ministry, where the new minister, Herbert Kickl, has taken a hard line on tightening security in the country. Kickl and the FPÖ are already pointing to their achievements, claiming to have bolstered the police, curbed illegal immigration, and stepped up deportations.

Kurz, meanwhile, has installed a member of his own ÖVP party in the influential finance ministry, and established himself as the face of the Austrian government. Ahead of last year’s vote, Kurz painted himself as the savior of the Abendland, or Christian West—as the man who closed the Balkan Route to migrants and effectively put an end to the 2015 refugee crisis. Now, he’s brought that mantle onto the European stage.

Anti-foreigner sentiments and slogans, once only uttered by the far-right, have now been adopted by Kurz and his government as part of an “Austria First” platform. Only extremely racist, anti-Semitic, or misogynist sentiments remain unpalatable―and they continue to appear on FPÖ platforms. That, in turn, makes Kurz appear as a moderate, center-right leader.

Kurz has also urged Brussels to show more understanding for Eastern European member states, repeatedly seeking sympathy for anti-immigration positions held by Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, and the Czech Republic―all of which reject German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s more liberal asylum policies and the EU’s refugee redistribution program.

The Anti-Merkel

The motto of Austria’s EU Council Presidency is “A Europe that protects,” a page from French President Emmanuel Macron’s book. But unlike Macron, Kurz doesn’t mean protection against unemployment or social inequality, but rather against illegal migration and for more security.

For the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) and other critics of the German chancellor, Kurz is an obliging anti-Merkel, and they appear eager to deepen ties. The German health minister Jens Spahn, a member of Merkel’s own CDU party who is openly critical of her policies, paid a visit to the Vienna Opera Ball with his husband last February; a few months later, Kurz and members of his government hopped on a train to the Austrian city of Linz to meet with the Bavarian government.

So what do these alliances portend? Some observers beliebe he may be positioning himself as a candidate for the EU Commission presidency―possibly for the 2024 European elections, when Kurz will be just 37 years old. The first step would be to claim an important role within the European People’s Party. “The young guns are angling for the EPP leadership,” wrote influential Austrian journalist Thomas Mayer from the left-leaning daily Der Standard. Mayer noted that Kurz’s style of politics was a clear departure from the more traditional, post-war ideals and sense of responsibility that informed Chancellor Angela Merkel’s approach to human rights and refugee policies.

Indeed, a growing number of Austrian media have come to describe Kurz’s politics as a type of “alpine Orbanism,” in reference to the “illiberal democracy” championed by Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. These commenatires and analyses are always accompanied by a stark warning that even well-established democracies like Austria are at risk of back-sliding into semi-authoritarianism. The danger, they point out, stems not only from right-wing, nationalist parties like the FPÖ), but also from centrist parties that have adopted far-right platforms.

One of Kurz’s harshest critics is Matthias Strolz, the long-time leader of Austria’s neocon movement and erstwhile ally of the Austrian Chancellor. In a widely read interview with the Austria Press Agency (APA) in June 2018, Strolz wrote that the “hour of Merkel’s antagonists” had arrived and accused the Austrian chancellor of heading up an “axis of the unscrupulous.” In his stinging rebuke, Strolz called the Austrian chancellor a stooge of right-wing populists, Trump supporters, and Putin loyalists―a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a slick and shiny right-wing populist who rose to a position where he can destroy the European Union from within.

The Far-Right Legitimized

Under the leadership of Heinz-Christian Strache, the party’s chairman and the vice chancellor, the FPÖ has become one of the best-connected right-wing populist parties in Europe, with an alternative news platform―Unzensuriert.at, or uncensored, a media outlet linked to the FPÖ―and deep ties to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, which have grown deeper since the party entered government and gained more legitimacy.

The strategy has been tried and tested in the past: start as an opposition party; build a propaganda platform cleverly disguised as alternative news; take over power of the government and control of public broadcasters; attack independent, critical media outlets. Austria is a prime example of how well this works.

“We tried to take a communication deficit and turn it to an advantage,” the FPÖ’s former general secretary Herbert Kickl once said in an interview. Kickl, now the interior minister, is waging a campaign against critical media.

The extent to which Europe’s right-wing populists are linked was made evident at the 2016 “Defenders of Europe” conference in Linz, a gathering of far-right and anti-Semitic groups. Kickl attended, and leading members of the German right-wing scene were also on hand―including Jürgen Elsässer, editor-in-chief of Compact, a fast-growing nationalist, right-wing magazine in Germany.

Walter Asperl, director of Unzensuriert.at, serves as a member of an FPÖ parliamentary group and has been accused of inciting hatred against Muslims, refugees, and homosexuals.

“A Need For Good Dialogue”

Meanwhile, Russia’s Putin is buttressing right-wing populist, euroskeptic movements across Europe. His United Russia party inked a friendship treaty with the FPÖ in 2016, with Strache paying a personal visit to Moscow to sign. Putin’s much-publicized attendance at Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl’s private wedding this summer was a potent symbol of this new bond. Images of Kneissl, who was nominated by the FPÖ, curtseying to Putin were beamed around the world and sparked huge controversy. Kneissl argued it was merely a sign of respect for a foreign leader. But the traditional dance reflects the two cornerstones of the Austrian government’s foreign policy―legitimize the far-right and build bridges to Russia.

Kurz was guarded in his reaction to the curtsy controvery, but shortly thereafter, he traveled to St. Petersburg to join Vladimir Putin in opening an exhibition at the State Hermitage Museum―the fourth meeting between the two leaders this year. “There is a need for good dialogue, especially with neighbors with whom there are tensions,” Kurz said in a press conference.

In this way, Kurz assumes the role of a steady-handed pilot steering his crew through a bumpy patch―and in doing so, he racks up points with FPÖ voters well right of the middle. He’s already picked up center-right voters in the national vote with his combination of polite, non-aggressive politics and sweeping security policies. The suave far-right centrist is a role Kurz has now perfected.

The post Right between East and West appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

Artwork © Dominik Herrmann

Sebastian Kurz knows how to party. Last Wednesday, he invited all of Vienna to a Sommerfest in the baroque Schönburg Palace, and he didn’t miss the opportunity to welcome every guest with a handshake. Wearing no tie, yet flawlessly dressed up, Kurz represented the new feeling in Vienna: In Europe, we are somebody again.

“Yes, but who?”, asked a few guests who had observed Kurz’s recent political travels. Austria’s conservative chancellor had just journeyed to Bavaria to visit the state’s Premier Markus Söder and support him in the “asylum fight” against Merkel. Meanwhile his Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache visited Italy’s new interior minister and agitator in chief, Matteo Salvini, and rhapsodized about a “Copernican Revolution in Europe’s asylum policy.” Two days after that, Kurz went to Budapest for a summit of Visegrad leaders, whom he has been defending from criticism. Kurz has even had time to call for an “axis of the willing”—an alliance of countries that want to proceed with a restrictive refugee policy. Kurz counts Vienna, Rome, and Berlin (or rather the CSU as the most conservative party in Angela Merkel’s government) among the willing, but also Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Kurz envisions these countries supporting militarized border controls and “protection centers” outside EU borders instead of the internal redistribution of refugees.

Is Kurz really the “rock star” of Europe’s new conservatives, as Trump’s ambassador in Berlin, Richard Grenell, declared to the right-wing readers of Breitbart? Is he really, right at the start of Austria’s presidency, aligning himself with Angela Merkel’s opponents and thereby positioning himself as a future conservative president of the EU Commission? The next EU elections are in 2019, the following ones in 2024—when Kurz will still only be 37 years old.

Perhaps is it really “the hour of Merkel’s antagonists,” time for the “axis of no principles”. That’s how Matthias Strolz, the former leader of Austria’s liberal and pro-European party NEOS, described the situation in an article in the German weekly DIE ZEIT. Strolz and Kurz were once friends. Today, Strolz does not hesitate to paint the Austrian chancellor as a henchman of international right-wing populists and Trump supporters—a man so perfectly equipped to destabilize Europe as if he had been designed for that purpose.

Perhaps Kurz is just a child of his time. A prototype of the next generation of European politicians, for whom the EU is not an indispensable union that arose out of the ashes of World War II, but an aging vehicle that must be completely renovated if it is to remain attractive for a generation that only knows the Iron Curtain from history books.

Celebrated as a Wunderkind

Kurz is young in years but old in political experience. He’s spent half his life in politics. As a teenager, he got involved with the youth organization of the ÖVP (Austrian People’s Party). In his mid-twenties, he became state secretary for integration, and then foreign minister—understandably, he was too busy to finish his law degree. Kurz comes from a moderate, middle-class background in Vienna. His mother is a teacher, and his father worked for Siemens until he started his own business. Sebastian was an only child, well-cared for and given every support. Disruptions, detours, rebellion—there was none of that.

His private life today is also unspectacular. Kurz lives with his high-school sweetheart, no kids, no pets—though he does like dogs, he explained in one of his rare private interviews. He also likes playing tennis and hiking in the mountains, and used to go windsurfing on Lake Garda in Italy. All in all, it’s an average-Joe background, perfect to identify with for many voters. It’s noticeable how carefully Kurz orchestrates his private life and controls the reporting about it. As a child of generation Facebook, he knows how to shape his image.

Europe is watching Österreich’s new chancellor with fascination, but also growing unease. After his electoral victory, the international press celebrated him as a “Wunderkind,” practically a Mozart reborn. But recently he gets compared more often to a different figure from Austrian history, namely Klemens von Metternich, the powerful, scheming master of ceremonies at the 1815 Congress of Vienna. One thing is for sure: this 31-year-old is no longer being underestimated.

“A Europe that Protects”

The motto of Austria’s Council presidency is “A Europe that protects” (a slogan borrowed from France’s President Emmanuel Macron), and Kurz takes that literally. To create this Europe, he believes that the EU needs a new, stronger border control comprising Frontex police and military units who can also take action in third countries and at sea. It should be able to send people back to “protection centers,” camps based outside the EU, where asylum-seekers would be held and processed before any of them would be allowed to cross Europe’s borders. These camps could be on the North African coast, though the new prestige project of the Austrian government foresees establishing them in the Western Balkans, perhaps in Albania, a country eager for EU accession.

As a foreign minister, Kurz helped close the West Balkan route to Europe in 2015 against all resistance and doubters. He praised the “Australian model” of setting up internment camps on nearby islands. Now he is working on closing off Europe’s external borders, as that would make superfluous the whole debate about distributing refugees within the EU according to quotas. Kurz does not foresee any compromise on that issue during Austria’s presidency. Closing off the external borders would also take the heat off the CSU’s proposal to reject asylum-seekers at the German border.

Already in the Austrian election campaign of 2017, Kurz styled himself as the savior of the West. He took over the ÖVP, a party that had shaped much of the country’s history after World War II, and converted it into a citizen’s movement. Now, the young chancellor is in his element at the EU level. He is testing what worked for him in Austria on a greater stage.

The election researcher Fritz Plasser analyzed Kurz’s rise in a recent book. “The refugee crisis of 2015 was the fault line. It created an epochal crisis topic that drove out everything else,” he wrote. By 2016, two-thirds of Austrians had the impression that something was going wrong.

Act Like a Startup

But Kurz is smart enough to do more than promote himself as an anti-refugee rabble rouser. Of course, he rode a wave of migrant-related worry into the Chancellery. But at the same time, he remained the neat, polite, almost sycophantic son-in-law who charms the grandmother just as easily as her granddaughter. There is nothing radical about his behavior or manner, unlike his vice-chancellor Strache and many other members of his coalition partner, the far-right FPÖ (Austrian Freedom Party). He is the perfectly anodyne right-wing populist, a hardliner in the garb of a Christian Democratic Socialist.

If you’re looking for Kurz’s fundamental convictions, you will not find them on the classical axis between Christian socialist and free-market liberalism. As a teenager of the 2000s, he was shaped by September 11 and the global financial crisis. As an Austrian, the country’s “years of change” from 2000-2006 were a decisive experience. Back then, there was also a right-wing conservative coalition in power, with Wolfgang Schüssel (ÖVP) as Chancellor and the FPÖ as a junior partner. That government quickly set about dismantling Austria’s tradition of grand coalitions defined by social equilibrium and consensus. An air of neoliberalism, of freedom and personal responsibility, swept through the land. The feeling was that if you couldn’t cope, it was your own fault.

Kurz is so heavily influenced by such thinking that he doesn’t even question it. He and his political movement act like a startup looking for sponsors, crowds, and likes on the political market. Added to that is a deep skepticism about everything the establishment represents—even though Kurz himself comes from the establishment. Political correctness is “over-the-top.”

If the line about the “axis of the willing” was clumsy, given that there is a dark history of axes led by Berlin, Rome, and Vienna, it doesn’t bother Kurz. For him, the accusations from German commentators that he was using “Nazi rhetoric” are just part of senseless debates from a time when even his parents weren’t yet born. “I have a problem with people dictating which words I can use. I have a healthy grasp of history, and I don’t like to let Nazis take words like “axis” or “homeland” (Heimat) away from me,” he has argued. Older people might find that cynical, see it as calculated pandering to the politics of the past. But when Kurz uses it, it is just a sign of how much history his generation has forgotten.

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