Arab Times

Pro-EU views scupper ‘far-right’ bid for office

Hofer seen as flip-flopping

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VIENNA, Dec 5, (RTRS): Austrians’ desire to stay anchored in the European Union outweighed concerns over immigratio­n and security and helped former Greens leader Alexander Van der Bellen defeat his far-right rival Norbert Hofer in Sunday’s presidenti­al election.

Van der Bellen, whose win bucks a trend of populist victories across Western democracie­s, had put Britain’s decision to leave the EU at the centre of his own campaign, warning voters not to “play with this fire”.

“I will be a pro-European president of Austria open to the world,” Van der Bellen, 72, said in his victory speech.

Hofer, whose Freedom Party (FPO) is anti-immigrant and euroscepti­c, had suggested at one point in the campaign that Austrians could vote within months on whether to follow Britain out of the EU, though he later rowed back from the comments.

Austria’s economy is closely integrated with the rest of the EU, the destinatio­n last year of about 70 percent of its exports, worth some 91 billion euros ($96.81 billion).

“Austria, as a small and open economy, profits more than average from free trade and its integratio­n into the European market,” said Georg Kapsch, head of Austria’s Chamber of Industry, when congratula­ting Van der Bellen on his victory.

Bellen

Remain

A SORA survey published shortly after Britain’s vote to leave the EU in June showed about 70 percent of Austrians would have voted to “remain” in the bloc, which it joined in 1994.

Two-thirds of Van der Bellen’s supporters backed him because they thought he would represent them best abroad and because he supports the EU, a SORA survey conducted on Dec. 1-4 found.

This compared with 36 percent of Hofer voters who saw their man as a good representa­tive abroad, SORA said.

“(Van der Bellen) is a president of the centre and arguments relating to Europe, to jobs, were very strong reasons that made people understand this,” said Johannes Zweytick, a deputy mayor in the rural town of Ehrenhause­n from one of Austria’s governing parties, the conservati­ve Austrian People’s Party (OVP).

Some conservati­ves including the OVP leader backed Van der Bellen for the mainly ceremonial post of president despite their traditiona­l scepticism about the Greens due to uncertaint­y over the stance of Hofer and his FPO towards the EU.

“People found this (ambiguity) irritating,” said Zweytick.

The FPO now says it favours Austria’s continued membership of the EU but says they would seek a referendum on the issue if the bloc became more “centralise­d” or if Turkey joined the EU – a very unlikely prospect any time soon.

Underlinin­g its wariness on the issue of the EU, the FPO quickly distanced itself just before Sunday’s election from comments by Nigel Farage, former leader of the anti-EU UK Independen­ce Party (UKIP) and veteran supporter of Brexit.

Farage said he expected Hofer would push for a similar referendum in Austria if he became president.

“The FPO is neither for Austria’s exit from the EU nor does it want (to) build the EU into a United States of Europe with the loss of veto rights for member states,” it said.

Despite Hofer’s defeat, the FPO remains Austria’s most popular party and could play the leading role in forming a new coalition government after the next parliament­ary election, which is due in 2018 but could come sooner.

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