Austrian far-right ministers to resign en masse amid ‘Ibiza-gate’ fallout
The move follows sacking of their party colleague Interior Minister Herbert Kickl
ALL remaining ministers from Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) are to resign, a party spokesman said on Monday, after one of their member, Interior Minister Herbert Kickl, was fired in the fallout from a corruption scandal that has brought down the government.
Conservative chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who called for fresh elections on Saturday over the affair, said Kickl would have to leave office to ensure a “complete, transparent investigation” into the scandal that has ended a coalition many on the European right had held up as a model ahead of key European Parliament polls later this week.
Kurz’s FPOe deputy, HeinzChristian Strache, stepped down as vice-chancellor and party leader on Saturday after recordings published by German media showed him offering government contracts in return for campaign help to a fake Russian backer in a villa on the Spanish resort island of Ibiza.
Elsewhere in the footage, Strache appears to hint at ways political donations could escape legal scrutiny.
The other ministers who are now set to follow Kickl out of the government include his
colleagues at the foreign, defence, transport and social affairs ministries.
Kurz said the vacant posts would be filled with experts or senior civil servants until the elections which President Van der Bellen has suggested be held in early September.
A date will be fixed after Van der Bellen has spoken to all party leaders.
Norbert Hofer, who is infrastructure minister and took over the FPOe leadership from Strache on Sunday, said Kickl had done “nothing wrong”.
Kickl was FPOe secretary general at the time when any political donations would have been made. Strache on Saturday denied the party had received illegal funds.
“I feel very sorry that such a great government project ends so soon... I think this government was very popular,” Hofer told a press conference earlier Monday.
Kurz has said the recordings were the final straw in a string of FPOe-related scandals, which have dogged the coalition since its formation in late 2017.
The most damaging recent controversy linked to Kickl was last year when the interior minister ordered raids on the country’s own domestic intelligence agency BVT.
Numerous documents were seized, raising fears among Austria’s Western partners about the possibility of leaks to Moscow.
The FPOe has a cooperation agreement with President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party.
Thousands of people demonstrated in Vienna against the government at an impromptu gathering in front of the chancellery on Saturday, as well as at a pro-EU rally on Sunday.