VIENNA (AP) — Austrian far-right leader Herbert Kickl's efforts to form a coalition government with a conservative party collapsed in mutual recriminations on Wednesday, more than four months after his party won a national election.
Austria's president gave Kickl a mandate to try to form a new government on Jan. 6 after other parties' efforts to put together a governing alliance without his Freedom Party failed.
But his talks with the conservative Austrian People’s Party appeared increasingly troubled in recent days, with constant talk of policy differences and a clash over who would get which ministries.
On Wednesday, Kickl informed President Alexander Van der Bellen that he was giving up the mandate to form what would have been the first national government headed by the far right since World War II.
The announcement comes after several weeks of tense negotiations, with leaks to the media highlighting growing distrust between the two parties.
Kickl's anti-immigration and euroskeptic party, which opposes sanctions against Russia, won Austria's parliamentary election in September. It took 28.8% of the vote and beat then-Chancellor Karl Nehammer's People's Party into second place.
But in October, President Alexander Van der Bellen gave Nehammer the first chance to form a new government after Nehammer's party said it wouldn't go into government with the Freedom Party under Kickl and others refused to work with the Freedom Party at all.
Those negotiations collapsed in January and Nehammer resigned, making way for interim Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg.
Kickl pointed the finger at the People's Party for the collapse. In a letter to the president released by his party, he said the parties failed on agree on clearing up disputed policy points or how to share the work of various ministries.
“I do not take this step without regret,” he said. But he said that there appeared to be no point in trying to negotiate with the center-left Social Democrats, the only other party with which the Freedom Party could reach a parliamentary majority.
“Austria has no time to waste,” Kickl said.
In a statement to media on Wednesday, conservative party leader Christian Stocker repeated his party’s priorities — including protecting Austria’s sovereignty and preventing undue foreign influence, particularly from Russia, preserving Austria’s role as a reliable partner in the EU, and safeguarding liberal democracy.
He said there have been numerous warnings from foreign partners in recent months that cooperation with Austria’s intelligence agency would be compromised if the Freedom Party gained control over the interior ministry.
“It is out of the question that we will compromise the security of the country,” Stocker said, adding that negotiations had collapsed because of Kickl’s “attitude.”
In February 2018, foreign intelligence services ceased sharing information with Austria following an illegal police raid on the country’s domestic intelligence agency. Concerns arose that sensitive information could fall into the wrong hands, including potentially in Russia’s.
A parliamentary inquiry found that senior officials at the Interior Ministry, at the time headed by Kickl, played an active role in pushing prosecutors to sign off on the raid.
It wasn't immediately clear what would happen next. Typically, that would be for the president to say. One potential scenario is that he will appoint a caretaker government while a more permanent solution is sought.
Peter Filzmaier, one of Austria’s leading political scientists, said that the negotiations had been turned into a “bizarre drama on the public stage.”
Both the Freedom Party and People’s Party insisted on securing control of the Interior Ministry, with the latter pointing to Kickl's actions as interior minister when the 2018 police raid was ordered. The Freedom Party had campaigned on toughening asylum and migration laws.
A confidential protocol summarizing the state of ongoing talks was leaked over the weekend and circulated widely. It indicated significant differences between the two political parties, particularly in foreign and security policy and regarding the European Union.
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Geir Moulson contributed to this report from Berlin.
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A previous version of this story corrected the second paragraph to say “without,” not “with” the Freedom Party.
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