Belgium seeks EU pressure to keep Haider out of office

Pressure grew on Austria's conservative People's Party yesterday to withdraw from coalition talks with Dr Jorg Haider's far-right…

Pressure grew on Austria's conservative People's Party yesterday to withdraw from coalition talks with Dr Jorg Haider's far-right Freedom Party when Belgium called for a special European Union meeting to prevent the right-wingers from entering government.

The Belgian Prime Minister, Mr Guy Verhofstadt, asked Portugal, which holds the EU Presidency, to convene a meeting of EU foreign ministers to defend the democratic values on which the EU was founded.

Meanwhile, the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, called on France, Germany and Spain to join a united international front to warn Austria of the consequences of Dr Haider's party entering government. Israel has threatened to withdraw its ambassador from Vienna if the right-wing populist, who has praised Hitler's employment policies and described SS veterans as honourable men, gains power.

Austria's EU Commissioner, Mr Franz Fischler, met President Thomas Klestil in Vienna yesterday to report on international reaction to the coalition talks between Dr Haider and the conservatives that began this week.

READ MORE

"I hope we get a government in Austria that is internationally acceptable. That is of great importance," Mr Fischler said.

Dr Klestil will meet Dr Haider and the conservative leader, Dr Wolfgang Schussel, next week to assess the progress of the negotiations, but he has not yet committed himself to asking the two parties to form a government. Under Austria's constitution, the president may appoint a government of independent experts, but such a government would still require a parliamentary majority.

An attempt to revive the coalition of Social Democrats and conservatives that has governed Austria for the past 30 years failed last week following a row over the division of cabinet posts.

Most observers in Vienna expect the President to invite the two parties to form a coalition if the talks succeed. Dr Schussel is likely to become chancellor, and Dr Haider has indicated that he will remain outside the cabinet in his present post of governor of the province of Carinthia.

An opinion poll published yesterday suggests that, if the talks collapse and the President calls fresh elections, Dr Haider's party would emerge in first place, ahead of the Social Democrats. The conservatives are likely to see their share of the vote slump by 9 per cent to 18 per cent while the Greens would almost double their share to 13 per cent.

A number of European conservative parties have called for the Austrian conservatives to be excluded from the European People's Party, the Christian Democrat group in the European Parliament, if the coalition goes ahead.

Dr Schussel has clearly been taken aback by the force of international opposition to his talks with Dr Haider and promised in Strasbourg that the new coalition would remain committed to European values. "The Austrian voters are not extreme rightwingers. Austria is not an extreme right-wing country," he said.

The prospect of the far-right entering government is sending shivers through Austria's tourism industry, and tourism officials said the first effects were already being seen. "Two groups from Israel have cancelled their stay and rebooked to Italy," said Ms Thekla Erler, director of tourism in the Tyrolean resort of Mayr hofen. "I expect it to eventually happen with the Netherlands, too, our biggest foreign contingent after Germany."

Denis Staunton

Denis Staunton

Denis Staunton is China Correspondent of The Irish Times