Herbert Kickl, the man tasked with forming a new coalition in Austria, openly advocates the “remigration of uninvited strangers”. What does he mean?
Herbert Kickl, the 56-year-old leader of Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ), has been asked by the country’s president to attempt and form a coalition government.
Although Kickl might need weeks to secure the necessary votes, and negotiations could fall apart at any moment, his odds vastly increased after the centre-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) dropped its red line and voiced willingness to enter negotiations with the FPÖ. The ÖVP had in the past worked with the FPÖ at the federal level but with the mainstream conservatives firmly in the lead. Now, the roles would be reversed.
It is a momentous chance for Kickl and his party, founded in 1956 by former Nazi officials. By all standards, it represents the far-right’s most realistic chance to reach the Austrian Chancellery for the first time since the Second World War.
“I did not take this step lightly,” Austria’s president, Alexander Van der Bellen,* said after tasking Kickl with the job. Kickl had previously called the 80-year-old president “a mummy” and “senile.”
Having Kickl installed in Vienna could have immediate and sweeping implications for Austria’s place in the European Union. His party’s manifesto for the 2024 parliamentary elections makes no secret of its Euroscepticism, with proposals to revise the country’s contribution to the EU budget, undo the Green Deal, and challenge the distribution of competences, coupled with criticism for the bloc’s “irresponsible” sanctions on Russia.
But the proposals on migration are, perhaps, the most explosive.
The FPÖ lays out a vision of “Fortress Austria” that would erect so many barriers to the right of asylum that it would become virtually inaccessible.
The right would be suspended for as long as asylum applications in Austria remain “above average”, pushbacks at the border would be legalised, family reunification and welfare benefits would be phased out, and the government would introduce penalties against both human traffickers and the humans who are trafficked.
More controversially, the authorities would actively pursue the “remigration of uninvited strangers”. “As People’s Chancellor, I will initiate the remigration of all those who trample on our right to hospitality,” Kickl says in the manifesto.
