With a heavy police presence keeping protestors away, Austria’s far right was sworn in on Monday as part of the Alpine country’s new government, rounding off a triumphant year for Europe’s nationalists. The new coalition was agreed on Friday by the conservative People’s Party (OeVP) and the Freedom Party (FPOe), pledging to stop illegal immigration, cut taxes and resist EU centralisation.
It will be led by Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who took over the OeVP in May and yanked it to the right, securing his party first place in October elections. At 31, Kurz will be the world's youngest leader. At his side for the investiture by Austria’s President in the Hapsburg dynasty’s imperial palace in Vienna was FPOe chief Heinz-Christian Strache, 48, now vice-chancellor, and FPOe general secretary Herbert Kickl, the new interior minister.
Strache has said Islam “has no place in Europe” and last year called German Chancellor Angela Merkel “the most dangerous woman in Europe” for her open-door refugee policy. On Sunday, Strache trumpeted to his 7,50,000 followers on Facebook that the new government would slash social benefits for asylum-seekers.
“It will no longer happen that migrants who have never worked here a single day or paid anything into the social system will get thousands of euros in welfare!” he said in a post that has gained 9,000 “likes”. Kickl is a former speechwriter for Strache’s predecessor Joerg Haider, whose 2000 entry into government prompted an outcry and soul-searching in Europe that appear largely absent this time.
