"No games, no tricks, no sabotage." Herbert Kickl sounded as if he was embarking on ransom talks last week after winning Austria's president's approval to form a government three months after winning parliamentary elections. Not joint negotiations.
The far-right leader has undoubtedly dominated negotiations with the centre-right People's Party (ÖVP), whose own coalition effort collapsed earlier this month. Kickl has threatened that any mess will lead to a re-vote, and opinion polls show his Freedom Party (FPÖ) will win overwhelmingly over the conservatives.
Kickel will not have his own way. The ÖVP insisted that he agree to safeguards to protect press freedom, maintain constructive relations with the EU and continue to support Ukraine. But the centre-right has not shown much backbone. Last autumn, new ÖVP leader Christian Stocker described Kickel's FPÖ as "a threat not only to democracy, but also to Austrian security." A few months have passed and I no longer feel this guilty.
Austria is about to have its first far-right prime minister since World War II. It would be a logical development for the country, where Kickel's party has participated in three federal governments as a centre-right, albeit never in the lead. But it is still a historic breakthrough for the FPÖ, with implications far beyond Austria.
It would normalize and embolden other populist nationalist movements in Europe. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) often takes its ideological cues from its more established Austrian counterpart. Alice Weidel, the Alternative for Germany's chancellor candidate, recently embraced the concept of "re-immigration" - the mass deportation of immigrants deemed to have failed to integrate into society, let alone their citizenship. The idea was first proposed by the Austrian nativist theorist Martin Serna, then adopted by Kickel and his party, and then by the extremist wing of the Alternative for Germany party. When it emerged that a group of AfD politicians and activists had attended a meeting with Serna to discuss "immigration" in November 2023, Wedel effectively severed ties with them. Now she has her own policy in place.
Kicker will bolster a growing cadre of nationalist, Eurosceptic leaders in Central Europe, orchestrated by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and seemingly determined to challenge the EU's liberal establishment and its pro-Ukraine foreign policy. They may be joined by billionaire Andrej Babiš, who is expected to win parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic later this year. Nationalist Călin Georgescu is likely to be re-elected as Romania's president after Romania's Constitutional Court canceled his candidacy in December over what Romanian authorities claimed was a Russian-backed influence campaign. Central European troublemakers may not always act in unison, but they have become impossible to marginalize, let alone ignore.
Kickel's potential rise to power also highlights the fragility of Europe's political center in early 2025. Mainstream parties, unwilling to cooperate with the far right or the populist right, are struggling to find common ground for effective governance. Strained public finances only make the problem more difficult.
In Austria, Kickel was invited to form a government because the center right could not agree with the center left and liberals on how to reduce the widening public deficit. In France, the new minority government of François Bayrou hangs by a thread, awaiting a budget deal. Fundamental differences over debt rules first paralyzed Germany's "traffic light" coalition and then exploded, pushing the AfD to new heights.
The firewall of Germany's mainstream parties against sharing power with the far right remains intact. But their ability to work together in the office will be severely tested. The Christian Democrats, who have moved significantly to the right under Friedrich Merz, are destined to win, but will have to form a coalition with the Social Democrats or the Greens, perhaps even both. However, some of Merz's allies are bent on slandering the Greens.
"Austria is an example of how things should not go," said Green Party chancellor candidate Robert Habeck. “It is to the advantage of the radicals if centrist parties cannot form a coalition and see compromise as the work of the devil.”
"If we don't show the will to build a democratic coalition, we face instability and an inability to act. Germany cannot afford it, and we cannot expect Europe to accept it."
Habaek is right. Compromise has become a dirty word in European politics. Herbert Kickel would certainly never have imagined this.
ben.hall@ft.com