IT IS a measure of populism’s rise that the announcement of a coalition deal between the centre-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) on December 16th caused barely a ruffle. When the two last formed a government, back in 2000, the news provoked diplomatic sanctions: visits and meetings were cancelled. No longer exceptional, Austria faces no sign of any such quarantine in Europe today.
To be sure, there are concerns in Berlin and Brussels. The FPÖ, which has a “co-operation agreement” with Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party and is close to the autocratic leaders of Hungary and Poland, will henceforth run Austria’s foreign, interior and defence ministries—and with them the country’s diplomatic and security services. But this is a shift of degree, not direction: the Alpine republic has long been doveish on Russia and closer to the central Europeans than to Angela Merkel...Continue reading
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