Austria Moves Right

A lot of people have chimed in on the election of fresh faced, 31 year old Sebastian Kurz as the new chancellor of Austria. While his "conservative" The People's Party (ÖVP) garnered 31.7% of the vote, the leftist Social Democrats managed 26.9% and were trailed closely by likely (ÖVP) coalition partner and the apparently much further Right Freedom Party (FPÖ), headed by 48 year old Heinz-Christian Strache, with 26%.

While much of the chatter has been about the rise of the Right in Austria and the solid showing for nationalism, I was mostly interested in the impact on the EU. With this election Austria seems to be solidly rejecting the EU government's suicide pact and more closely aligning themselves with their Eastern European neighbors. From the story.....

Kurz has openly praised Hungary's populist premier Viktor Orban, while the FPÖ is ambivalent at best about the EU.

Strache wants EU sanctions on Moscow lifted and pushed for closer ties with the Visegrad Four countries -- Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

A right-wing coalition "is likely to lead to more tensions with other EU members and Austria is likely to move closer to the Visegrad 4 states", said expert Pepijn Bergsen at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

A move in that direction is something I was pondering back in August with my post Revising The Arctic Alliance. I see the potential for Poland and the rest of the Visegrad to overcome historic distrust of Russia and move Eastward rather than Westward and thought perhaps Austria might tag along:

I can see a new alliance if not friendship that stretches from Poland and Hungary (maybe Austria?) across Russia to China.

Wishful thinking perhaps but I do believe that the EU stranglehold is starting to slip. As I wrote earlier about Poland, the East of Europe including Austria has a lot of land and not as many people. Austria has a population of around 8.7 million people in a country of some 32,385 square miles which is a density of around 268 people per square mile, which is less than half that of Germany and lower than even Poland.

Austria has a bright future if it continues down this path and especially if it begins to unshackle itself from the European Union. I would like to see American nationalists supporting Austrian independence from the EU, it is a far from perfect nation but it appears to be on the right path. One day soon we might see a new barrier separating the West and East in Europe but this time it will be to keep the people in the West out instead of keeping the people of the East in. I wonder which side of the barrier nations like Austria will find themselves on? Here's hoping they end up allied with Poland and Hungary instead of being a vassal state of Germany and France.