Jacob Christensen

Somehow, this had to happen. Or at least it was difficult to imagine Jörg Haider dying quietly of old age in his bed. Being killed in a spectacular car accident was more in the style of the Austrian political enfant terrible.

During the last twenty years, Austria has given observers a number of shocks and surprises with the formation of the ÖVP-FPÖ coalition in 2000 and the combined victories of the nationalistic right-wing parties FPÖ and BZÖ in 2008. And just like the bad guys in horror movies, Haider kept coming back on stage, after everybody had considered him (politically) dead.

That the FPÖ performed so strongly in the 2008 elections is an indication that nationalistic anti-immigration sentiments are deeply entrenched in (some parts of) the Austrian electorate. That BZÖ was very much a Kärnten affair is an indication that regional politics as well as Haider’s person played some role in the mobilisation of the right wing.

Are there any lessons for other European countries? Austria is not the only country which has seen nationalistic anti-immigration (or perhaps rather anti-Muslim) currents being mobilised during the 1990s and 200s – besides France, Belgium with its peculiar regional politics, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway come to mind.

Following the murder of Pim Fortuyn, the LPF collapsed but anti-immigration policies survived in the PVV, led by Geert Wilders, another high-profied personality.

More quietly, the Norwegian Progress Party seems to have more than survived the handing-over of leadership from Carl I. Hagen to Siv Jensen and at this point in time, my guess is the fortunes of the Danish People’s Party are not that dependent on Pia Kjærsgaard.

One thing which set Austria, Haider and the FPÖ apart from the other countries is history. That the ATS column in the Danish newspaper Politiken jokingly referred to Haider as “Jörg Heiler” was not without a base in reality: Haider was the son of convinced nazis.

No, not in that way. We are talking a different kind of sordid stuff here as it turns out that I’ve managed to completely miss that Austria has extended suffrage to 16- and 17-year olds.

NRC Handelsblad, of all sources, reminded me.

I noted that SDU flew the Austrian flag today. If I had checked the public calendar I would have made a note of this arrangement: The Austrian ambassador and Associate professor F. Talbo Stubkjær discuss the Austrian identity and the upcoming elections.

Dang! My routines are not quite up and running yet.

(But why doesn’t the calendar have an rss-stream?)

I don’t have anything profound to say about the Austrian elections but a former student lured me into testing wahlkabine.at. This was my result:

HT: Laurenz Ennser.

Here I am, quietly working my way through the backlog of issues of Die Zeit – and believe me: This is serious work – when suddenly in the middle of an article about the collapse of the Austrian government … wham:

Dabei hält [Heinz Christian Strache - leader of the FPÖ] sich die Unterstützervariante offen, mit der zum Beispiel die Dänen ihre populäre Kombination von sozialliberaler “Flexicurity” (soziale Sicherheit und arbeitsmarktpolitische Flexibilität) und sozialchauvinistischer Anti-Immigrations-Politik aufrechterhalten: eine Minderheitsregierung (in Kopenhagen Mitte-rechts), im Parlament gestützt auf die rechten Populisten der Pia Kjærsgaard

Austria is the new Denmark?

Well, I have occasionally wondered what happened with Hans Hetler.

On a more serious note, immigration policy is the hot topic during the summer break in Denmark – at least in the media – but even though the Immigration Minister is goofing up again, I can’t see it hurting the government.

For some reason the article (“Das Ende der Schlegokraz”) is not available online but it was printed in #29/2008.

Speaking of Austria: Inspired by recent events, Niklas Ekdal from Dagens Nyheter compares the place with…

…Afghanistan.

Well, both are mountainous, landlocked states.

At A Fistful of Euros Alex Harrowell thinks back at his time as an exchange student in Vienna during 2001-2002:¹

What do I remember, of the pre-Bologna German university? Well, one thing was the teaching staff, or rather their absence; you could go literally weeks without seeing your professor outside the huge lectures, but why would you want to? Their pompous titles were only matched by their pomposity in general. This didn’t go so much for the postgraduate assistants, but then, there’s only so often you actually want a row about Trotsky…

Strictly speaking, Vienna is in Austria, not Germany, but never mind: As I’ve understood it, Austria is basically like Germany, just more hierarchical and traditionalistic and definitively much less rational.

More about the charms of German(ic) universities here.

1. There is a problem with the direct link, hence the link to the front page [↩]

Alex Harrowell brings us what must surely be the headline of the day, nay, of the week.

Oh, and I have Mads Brügger’s interview with Geert Wilders from last week waiting for me on the AppleTV.

Gulasch gives the impression of a nice though not too adventurous dish, but the stories about the Austrian Interior Ministry sounds more like something out of the works of Franz Kafka.

Or should that be Dr. Franz Kafka?

Austria is a strange country. A very strange country, in fact. I have fond memories of an Austrian professor of political science some years ago explaining in great detail how the Austrians devised a highly complex procedure for the parliamentary adoption of EC legislation. Not that the Austrians ever used it (okay, once or twice during the early years of Austria’s EU membership), but every – and I mean every – possible bureaucratic and parliamentary bell and whistle had been considered and pulled.

I should note that my Austrian colleague is a master of suspense: Even if everybody knew what was coming, his deadpan approach to the subject kept the audience spellbound. And as a Swedish colleague said afterwards: If you thought that was hilarious, you should hear him analysing Austrian politics late at night.

But of cause, to me Austria is forever linked with the statement “the situation is catastrophic, but not serious”, so what would you expect anyway?

To be fair, Austria isn’t the only European country which has seen kidnappings of children and where the police have acted ineffectively triggering a major political scandal (Belgium, anybody? Another surreal European country with a history of divisions and proporz rule) – but according to Die Zeit, the Kampusch affair – or rather the government’s handling of an inquest into the affair and attempts by high officials to cover up irregularities – may bring down the coalition.