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“No games, no tricks, no sabotage.” Herbert Kickl appeared to be entering ransom negotiations rather than coalition talks last week after receiving the green light from the Austrian president to try to form a government three months after winning the parliamentary election.
The far-right leader undoubtedly has the upper hand in negotiations with the center-right People’s Party (ÖVP), whose coalition efforts failed earlier this month. Any confusion, Kickl threatened, would lead to a new vote and, according to polls, a landslide victory for his Freedom Party (FPÖ) over the conservatives.
Kickl won’t do everything its own way. The ÖVP insists that it accept guarantees to protect press freedom, maintain a constructive relationship with the EU and maintain its support for Ukraine. But the center-right is not showing much courage. Christian Stocker, the new leader of the ÖVP, described Kickl’s FPÖ last fall as “not only a threat to democracy, but an equally great threat to the security of Austria.” A few months later, this scruple no longer exists.
Austria is set to have its first far-right chancellor since World War II. This would be a logical development for the country, where Kickl’s party has already participated in three federal governments with the center right, but without ever being in the lead. But it would nevertheless be a historic breakthrough for the FPÖ, the repercussions of which go far beyond Austria.
This would normalize and encourage other populist nationalist movements in Europe. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) often draws inspiration from its more established Austrian counterpart. Alice Weidel, the AfD candidate for chancellor, recently embraced the concept of “remigration” – the mass expulsion of immigrants deemed to have failed to integrate, let alone their citizenship status. The idea was first adopted by Austrian nativist ideologue Martin Sellner, taken up by Kickl and his party, and then adopted by the extremist wing of the AfD. When it emerged that a group of AfD politicians and activists had attended a meeting with Sellner in November 2023 to discuss “remigration”, Weidel effectively disavowed them. Today, she is taking ownership of this policy.
Kick This would strengthen the growing group of nationalist and Eurosceptic leaders in Central Europe who, orchestrated by Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, appear determined to challenge the EU’s liberal establishment and its pro-Ukrainian foreign policy. They could be joined by Andrej Babiš, the billionaire poised to win the Czech Republic’s parliamentary elections later this year. Nationalist Călin Georgescu could be re-elected president of Romania after his candidacy was annulled in December by the country’s Constitutional Court due to what Romanian authorities said was a Russian-backed influence campaign. The troublemakers of Mitteleuropa may not always act in unison, but it is becoming impossible to put them aside, let alone ignore them.
Kickl’s The likely accession to power also highlights the fragility of the political center in Europe at the start of 2025. Traditional parties opposed to cooperation with the far right or the populist right are struggling to find common ground among themselves to govern effectively. Tight public finances only make the problem worse.
In Austria, Kickl was asked to form a government because the center-right could not agree with the center-left and the liberals on how to reduce the gaping public deficit. In France, the new minority government of François Bayrou is hanging by a thread, awaiting a budget agreement. Fundamental differences over debt rules first paralyzed and then shattered Germany’s traffic light coalition, propelling the AfD to new heights.
Germany’s main parties’ firewall against sharing power with the far right remains intact – for now. But their ability to work together in the office will be put to the test. The Christian Democrats, who have moved sharply to the right under Friedrich Merz, are poised to win, but will have to team up with the Social Democrats or the Greens, or both, to form a coalition. Yet some of Merz’s allies are determined to vilify the Greens.
“Austria is an example of how things should not be,” said Green chancellor candidate Robert Habeck. “If centrist parties fail to form alliances and view compromise as the work of the devil, it helps the radicals.”
“If we do not show the will to form democratic alliances, we will face instability and an inability to act. Germany cannot afford it and we cannot expect Europe to accept it.”
Habeck is right. Compromise has become a dirty word in European politics. The one that will surely never pass the lips of Herbert Kickl.
