• 3 months ago
Austria could become the latest European Union member state to have a far-right party in power after the Freedom Party (FPÖ) secured victory in Sunday's general election.

Category

🗞
News
Transcript
00:00The victory of Austria's far-right Freedom Party, FPÖ, at the Sunday's elections marks
00:06another win for Euroscepticism in Europe.
00:10It's the first time since the Second World War the far-right has finished first in an
00:13election.
00:15Despite narrowly winning the election, the FPÖ faces challenges forming a coalition,
00:21with the other major parties refusing to work with its controversial leader, Herbert Kickl.
00:26What they're very vocal about is anti-migration.
00:30So this was very, very strong in the past decades and again in the campaign.
00:41And one can speculate, one still has to really look at these results and also look at polls,
00:48opinion polls, why people voted the way they voted.
00:52But what we hear is that this migration course, pushing very strong the anti-migration discourse,
01:04and that we also see in other European countries, that seems to have worked well.
01:10The far-right has recently scored several wins across Europe.
01:13However, Hungary is still the only member state with a single far-right party that has
01:18a majority in power.
01:21Other far-right parties are in coalition governments, such as in Italy, the Netherlands, Finland,
01:26Czechia and Croatia.
01:30In both France and Germany, far-right parties might not be in power yet, but have made historic wins.
01:39For Europe at large, we see that there is, of course, a shift to the right, and we have
01:44to ask ourselves the question, why?
01:48And what to do about it?
01:50I think what is also very important is that it's very clear you can no longer ignore this
01:57and go back to business as usual.
02:00It is still not clear if the FPÖ will be able to form a coalition government in Austria.
02:04However, if they do lead a coalition, they will join other far-right voices in Europe
02:09who want to tighten migration policy as well as minimize aid to Ukraine.
02:15The FPÖ joins Hungary's Viktor Orban in calling for some powers to be returned to Austria
02:20from the European Union.

Recommended