Austrian Chancellor to resign after coalition talks fail. political news
Nehmer says his People’s Party will not support measures he believes will hurt the economy or new taxes.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer has said he will resign after talks between the country’s largest centrist parties on forming a government without the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) failed.
The announcement on Saturday came a day after the liberal Neos party withdrew from talks with Nehmer’s conservative People’s Party (OVP) and the Social Democrats (SPEO).
“Following the breakdown of coalition talks, I am going to do the following: I will resign from both the posts of chancellor and party chairman of the People’s Party in the coming days,” he said.
In a video posted on his social media accounts, the outgoing chancellor said that “long and honest” talks with the centre-left had failed despite a shared interest in stemming the advance of the far right.
Nehmer stressed that his party would not support measures that he believed would hurt the economy or new taxes.
He said he would enable “a systematic change” and attack “against those fundamentalists who do not offer a single solution to any problem but live only by describing the problems”.
The far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) won the first parliamentary elections in its history in late September with nearly 30 percent of the vote.
But other parties refused to govern in coalition with the Eurosceptic, Russia-friendly FPÖ and its leader Herbert Kickl, so President Alexander Van der Bellen tasked Nehmer with forming a coalition in late October.
Nehmer’s announcement comes after Neos failed to reach an agreement with the party.
Neos leader Beate Meinel-Risinger said progress was impossible and “fundamental reforms” had not been agreed upon.
Following the Chancellor’s departure, the ÖVP is expected to convene to discuss potential successors.
The political landscape in Austria remains uncertain, with no immediate prospects of forming a stable government due to ongoing differences between the parties.
The president can now appoint another leader and an interim government as the parties try to find a way out of the impasse.
The next government in Austria faces the challenge of saving 18 to 24 billion euros ($18.5-24.7 billion), according to the European Commission.
The country’s economy has been in recession for the past two years, unemployment is rising and its budget is 3.7 percent of GDP – above the European Union’s 3 percent limit.
