On September 29, elections for the Lower House were held in Austria: the
Freedom Party (FPÖ), a party founded by SS officers, won as expectedwith 28.9% of the votes. The People's Party (ÖVP) and the Socialists
(SPÖ), if they decided to form a coalition, would have a narrow majority
of just one seat: broader alliances will therefore be necessary. Of the
183 deputies elected: 57 belong to the FPÖ, 51 to the ÖVP (center-right
Christian Democrats, who were 71 in the previous legislature) and 41 to
the SPÖ (Social Democrats). The Greens and the Liberals (Neos) collected
8.4% and 9.2% of the votes respectively. The Greens, the minority
partners of the outgoing government, suffered a heavy defeat, losing 5.6
points and 10 MPs, going from 26 to 16 seats. The Communist Party (2.5%)
did not pass the 4% threshold, but could still elect a MP thanks to the
result obtained in a single-member constituency in Graz. The Beer Party,
on the other hand, did not enter Parliament, stopping at 2.1%, with over
100 thousand votes.
It is expected that negotiations for the new government will last a long
time. The result of the vote is particularly significant in light of the
fact that 6.35 million people participated in the vote and the turnout
was almost three points higher than in 2019, from 78%.
An expected result
What happened confirms the prevailing trends in the electorate today in
Europe, in almost every country and the reasons are identical. There is
a vertical crisis of the parties of the left that have lost their
identity and their ability to represent the interests of the less
well-off classes, in other words their class composition. Voters no
longer recognize themselves in their programs and what seems to have
changed the most is the very DNA of these parties. The supine and
uncritical adhesion to the green transition not accompanied by policies
of support for the profound changes in the labor market is
disconcerting, but what contributes to making them unrecognizable to
voters is their supine acceptance of war, in particular that of the West
against Russia, in support of a nation, Ukraine, that is building its
non-existent national identity on the war against Russia, taking
advantage of a crude and chauvinistic nationalism, fueled at the expense
of the taxpayers of the various countries of Europe, called to finance
the war effort and to sacrifice their interests, calling into question
the economic relations, especially those in the energy field, with Russia.
The Austrians, like the Germans of East Germany in particular, know the
Ukrainian populations well, they are well aware of the mix of peoples
that make up the country: a mix of Poles, Ruthenians, Romanians and
Cossack populations that inhabit the western regions of the country
artificially put together with Russian-speaking populations, who inhabit
the center and east of a country that is immense in territory. They know
well that they are faced with composite national and traditional
identities, having been part of that Central Europe with them, of which
Austria was the political and institutional center. They therefore
understand how their unique national identity is fake, how the
construction of a common destiny of a nation is the fruit of a
revanchist nationalism, constructed at the table, on the identity of
Simon Petliura and Stepan Banderas, and valorized to counter the
expansion of the Russian populations. They are aware of this because it is
part of their identity as Austrians and Germans, but also because they
know their behaviors, mentality and habits, traditions and customs
because they already received these populations as temporary migrants
before the war and are therefore able to grasp the artificiality of
thinking of Ukraine as a single nation, from the Carpathians to the
Donbass, not to mention Crimea.
They therefore realize that only by paying a price in blood, which feeds
on hatred and collective pain, can one cynically decide to forge a
common national spirit, taking advantage of the foolish and criminal
policy of a dictator like Putin, but despite this they do not want to
sacrifice their material interests to this design so often used to draw
the borders between the populations in the center of Europe and develop
the refusal to take sides, to participate in the warmongering orgy. They
do not accept that the ones paying for this political project are those
countries - like theirs - whose economic prosperity revolved around that
of the German economy that based its competitiveness on the extremely
low cost at which it managed to obtain energy (gas and oil), through
supply relationships with Gazprom and therefore through a partnership
with Russia. Austria was certainly one of these states - damaged by the
war in Ukraine - whose economy was particularly vulnerable due to the
geographical position of the country, which depended and depends for its
supplies of natural gas and oil totally on the Russian supplier either
through the German corridor or directly, through the oil and gas
pipeline coming from Russia that crossed and crosses the Ukrainian and
Slovak territory. Given this situation, the outbreak of hostilities
between Russia and Ukraine, while on the one hand has left in place the
contracts for the supply of oil and gas that has continued to flow to
the country with the approval of Ukraine that has continued to collect
the rights of passage from Gazprom (pecunia non olet), paid even during
the state of war, will only see the service interrupted in December when
the contract expires. The Austrian consumer knows that there are
currently no alternative supply routes, and is aware of the difficulties
of getting the necessary energy resources through the oil and gas
pipelines that go up the Balkans from Turkey and therefore understands
the need to oppose the war. Aware of this, he relies on those right-wing
parties that declare that they have fully understood what is happening
and that declare that they want to serve the interests of the country.
The Austrian economy is about to close the second consecutive year in
recession: -0.8% in 2023, and the forecast for 2024 is -0.1%. The
outlook for 2025 is not better. According to the Austrian Institute for
Economic Research (WIFO), the country is going through its most serious
crisis since 2008/09. Inflation was 7.8% in 2023, four times higher than
the ECB's target; in Italy, in the same period, prices increased "only"
by 5.7%. Austrian manufacturing has been in recession for nine
four-month periods and in the same period real estate investments have
collapsed by 18%. What politics is unable to make the electorate
understand is that only an active immigration and reception policy could
contribute to the relaunch of the construction and real estate sector
and would act as a driving force for an effective recovery, even of a
structural nature, of the entire economy. As long as the increase in the
resident population remains linked to the demographic growth of half a
point, essentially due to the policy of openness to emigration adopted
up to now, these development prospects are completely unrealistic, and
indeed the economic situation is destined to worsen due to the
restrictions required: the erection of the "Austrian fortress", desired
by the right, destines the country to economic and cultural decline. The
growth prospects are therefore far from rosy even if the country is
fortunate enough to be formally outside of NATO and therefore is not
directly involved in the policies of bellicose rearmament and in the
policy of support for the Ukrainian war, through the supply of
armaments, but only committed to guaranteeing humanitarian assistance to
the Ukrainian population, and this because of the ties that the country
has with the European Union. This particular position of the country at
the international level, its formal neutrality, has allowed the FPÖ to
ask for the reopening of relations with Moscow, given that 2/3 of the
country's gas supplies still come from Siberia and it will be extremely
difficult to free itself from this dependence. The only growing element
of the country's economy appears to be tourism, also because hotel
accommodation remains high.
The issue of emigration
If it is true that economic problems have formed the basic backbone of
the right-wing election campaign, it is also true that the victory of
the Freedom Party was possible due to the policies implemented to
contain the flow of migrants that partly cross and partly involve the
country. Austria has always been the gateway to the Balkans; the
populations tormented by the Yugoslav crisis have looked to it, seeking
refuge, and the so-called Balkan route that takes migrants from Turkey
to the center of Europe heads towards it. This has meant that today
about 18% of its population is made up of migrants.
Among these, a special place must be reserved today for refugees in the
country following the war in Ukraine. Under the legal pelophile,
Ukrainians have been granted - as in other countries - a special
humanitarian status that allows for a long-term stay. Facilities have
been arranged to be able to find houses to rent and other reception
facilities. Those who can pay rent are directed to an apartment in line
with their spending possibilities, the others are taken care of pro rata
by the federal Laender, impacting, as everywhere, negatively on the
housing market and on welfare resources. But there is more: the numerous
Ukrainian cars that have arrived on Austrian roads have been granted a
period of exemption from parking bans and the postponement and
obligation to nationalize the vehicle's license plate, making them
privileged in the long run. While initially the entire population had
great sympathy for the refugees and was not shocked to see cars parked
everywhere, without much regard for the highway code, over time some
critical issues emerged and it was necessary to explain to the refugees
that respecting the highway code is an obligation for everyone.
Ukrainian children, also counting on a rapid overcoming of language
barriers, were directly admitted to Austrian schools, creating
management difficulties and differentiating them from other migrants.
The Ukrainians settled in Austria now number around 75 thousand and
among these the number of draft dodgers is growing as the country
involves increasingly younger classes of the population in the call to
arms. The assistance system is at the limit of saturation, and this
contributes to fueling resistance towards any other type of migrant who
intends to take up residence in the country. The closing of borders and
the adoption of a more rigid immigration policy, following the example
of what Hungary and Germany are doing, has become the characteristic
feature of the right-wing party and has been one of the reasons for its
electoral success. The refusal to accept the policies of migrant
distribution among the different countries of the European Union and the
obligations arising from the Schengen Treaty has been the test bench on
which to measure consensus and determined the success of the Freedom Party.
The fears that the deterioration of the economic situation brings with
it have led the Austrian electorate to prefer a policy of alignment with
those governments in Europe that support the closing of borders and a
rigid immigration policy. The presence of an industrial reserve army
made up of illegal migrants, subject to blackmail, available for any
work performance in order to obtain an income, even the minimum to
survive, is seen by the less well-off classes as unacceptable
competition that contributes to depressing the regular labor market and
allows wages to be kept below unacceptable levels.
The Editorial Staff
https://www.ucadi.org/2024/10/30/austria-felix-addio/
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