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Austria far-right party head resigns after infighting

Norbert Hofer, the leader of Austria's far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), announced his resignation Tuesday after weeks of infighting and tension with party colleague and former Interior Minister Herbert Kickl.

Austria far-right party head resigns after infighting
Former leader of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPOe) Norbert Hofer. Photo: ALEX HALADA / AFP

 “My own journey at the helm of the FPOe is ending today,” Hofer said in an FPOe press release but clarified that he will keep his position as one of the deputy presidents of parliament until the next general election, currently scheduled for 2024.

Hofer has a mild-mannered public image and was seen as representing a more moderate wing within the anti-migration FPOe, which has been known to use Islamophobic rhetoric and imagery.

Hofer had for months been at loggerheads with Kickl, the party’s longterm ideologue who has been behind some of the FPOe’s most trenchant campaigns.

Hofer has walked with a cane since a 2003 paraglider accident and announced his resignation following three weeks of treatment for his old injuries at a physical rehabilitation centre.

When the tabloid Oesterreich asked Hofer Tuesday if his resignation was also partially in response to differences of opinion with Kickl, he replied: “Yes, of course. I won’t be told every day that I am out of place.”

The two politicians had differing approaches to the coronavirus pandemic. Hofer was notable in the FPOe caucus for wearing the FFP2 face mask required in parliament, while Kickl made a point of not doing so and made fiery addresses to anti-lockdown demonstrations.

In 2016 Hofer narrowly failed in his bid to become the first far-right president of an EU member state, losing to Alexander Van der Bellen by some 31,000 votes.

He took over as head of the party in 2019 when Heinz-Christian Strache, then Austria’s Vice Chancellor, was forced to resign after secretly recorded footage in a luxury villa in Ibiza showed him offering a woman posing as the niece of a Russian oligarch state contracts in exchange for campaign help for the FPOe.

The so-called “Ibiza-gate” scandal brought down the first coalition headed by Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, an alliance of his centre-right People’s Party (OeVP) and the FPOe.

“The time after Ibiza wasn’t easy,” Hofer said in his statement, adding that it had been “a difficult job to build the party back up again” after the coalition collapsed.

“In the last few months it has been possible to stabilise the party,” he said, pointing to improved recent performance in the polls where it has scored as high as 20 percent.

The party won just over 16 percent in the last national elections in 2019.

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POLITICS

How Austria’s centre-left SPÖ party plans to change integration policy

Asylum, migration, and integration policies are a much-debated issue in Austria, particularly as the country heads to its national elections in the fall. What are the centre-left SPÖ plans?

How Austria's centre-left SPÖ party plans to change integration policy

National elections in Austria will take place this fall, and one of the most debated issues – certainly one that has been driving voters for the past few years – is the refugee and asylum policy debates. 

While the far-right party FPÖ has gained popularity with extremist views such as closing off Austria entirely for asylum seekers, the centre-right ÖVP has also presented tougher stances. The chancellor’s party has publicly defended the creation of “asylum centres” for processing outside of the EU borders. Chancellor Karl Nehammer has also fully supported the UK’s plan to deport asylum seekers to “safe third countries”

A tougher stance on refugee policies has proved popular in Austria, and the centre-left SPÖ party has also seemed to lean toward stricter ideas more recently. However, since the party got a new leadership, a precise migration programme had not been presented yet. However, the issue was pressing, particularly following the party’s poor performance in the EU elections, when migration played a key role.

READ ALSO: How a change in the profile of asylum seekers is impacting Austria

So what are the party’s plans?

The SPÖ presented a new” masterplan” for asylum, migration, and integration. According to the SPÖ, the “Doskozil-Kaiser paper,” which has existed since 2018, has been “sharpened,” resulting in an “offensive paper” with approaches for action, said SPÖ leader Andreas Babler.

The aim was to “ensure balance and order” under “the premise of humanity”, said Babler at a press conference in Vienna.

The plan’s main points include faster procedures at the EU’s external borders, a fair distribution of refugees within the EU, and sanctions against countries that refuse to do so. With this, the SPÖ wants to reach a 75 percent reduction in the number of asylum applications. 

For example, the party leaders mentioned Hungary, where there were only 45 applications in 2023, compared to almost 60,000 in Austria. They said Hungary had to be persuaded to cooperate by exhausting all legal and political means.

The SPÖ proposes procedure centres along the EU’s external borders so that procedures can be completed more quickly and people do not hand themselves over to smugglers. The EU should set up “common centres for asylum applications”, for example, in embassies. 

People should only be distributed within the EU once the asylum applications have been assessed favourably. As a first step, cooperation between individual states could occur without the consent of all EU member states.

READ ALSO: When do Austrians think an immigrant is successfully integrated?

‘Integration year’ and deportation

The SPÖ plan contains an “extended mandatory integration year” that would ensure refugees get “German and values courses.” However, severe penalties, including deportation, would be imposed for serious offences or “repeated minor crimes.” 

Instead of mass accommodation, the SPÖ proposes small centres enabling better contact with the population. Women’s rights should also become a “central guiding principle for integration”. Women’s self-determination is the top priority, said SPÖ women’s spokesperson Eva-Maria Holzleitner.

The party reiterated that asylum is fundamentally a human right that should never be questioned. However, those who are denied their asylum request would be deported to their country of origin or safe third countries, the party advocates. 

READ ALSO: Who needs to take Austria’s integration exam?

Criticism from the right

Over the weekend, party representatives from far-right FPÖ and centre-right ÖVP have come out to criticise the SPÖ proposals. 

An FPÖ spokesperson said the plan is “pure PR policy” and that, in truth, the SPÖ had “always opened the door to illegal mass immigration under the guise of asylum”. The ÖVP said the proposals are just “headlines instead of concrete proposals for solutions”. 

In a press release, the party said that no capacity limit was presented, showing “that the SPÖ has still not realised that illegal migration cannot be countered by further squeezing the Austrian taxpayer”

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