The new chancellor of Austria, 31-year-old Sebastian Kurz, has given his right-wing Freedom Party (FPO) partners key appointments in the new cabinet. It signals a significant shift to the right.
Image: Reuters/L. Foeger
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The conservative People's Party (OVP) leader Sebastian Kurz will become the next chancellor and right-wing coalition partner Freedom Party (FPO) head Heinz-Christian Strache will become vice-chancellor in the new Austrian government. Strache will also be minister for sports and public servants.
Five other ministries go to Strache's Freedom Party. They include the key interior, defense and foreign ministries.
Kurz's People's Party will have seven ministers and one deputy. They include the finance, economy and justice ministries.
The ministers are to be sworn in on Monday.
Following meetings with Kurz and Strache, Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen said he had been assured of a "pro-European" focus of the new government.
"In these talks among other things we agreed it is in the national interest of Austria to remain at the center of a strong European Union and to actively participate in the future development of the European Union," Van der Bellen said.
"We have agreed a clear pro-EU stance with the aim of boosting subsidiarity in the EU," Kurz told a news conference. They favor an EU that is "stronger in big questions and which should step back on smaller issues," he said.
There will be no referendum on Austria's EU membership, Strache said. "We stand by the European Union, we stand by the peace project of Europe. But we see various developments critically, and we will of course articulate this and seek partners," Strache said.
Both parties campaigned on tougher immigration controls, speedier deportations of failed asylum seekers and a crackdown on radical Islam.
Youngest European leader
The 31-year-old Kurz led a revamped People's Party to first place in the October 15 parliamentary election. The conservatives and right-wing populists agreed to form a coalition government on Friday.
"We want to reduce the burden on taxpayers ... and above all we want to ensure greater security in our country, including through the fight against illegal immigration," Kurz said.
Young heads of government or state – Sebastian Kurz is not alone
Sebastian Kurz is the new Austrian chancellor, at the age of just 31. He is one of the youngest ever elected heads of government. DW takes a look at some other young leaders of recent times.
Image: picture-alliance/APA/H. Neubauer
Sebastian Kurz, Austria
Sebastian Kurz, the leader of the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), is not the only youthful politician on the scene: In recent years there have been several national leaders who did not correspond to the classic image of the elder statesman at the time they took office.
Image: picture-alliance/APA/H. Neubauer
Mario Frick, Liechtenstein
In December 1993 Frick became prime minister of Liechtenstein at just 28 years old – the youngest head of government in the world. He presided over the fate of the world’s sixth-smallest country for more than seven years, until April 2001. An attorney by profession, Frick subsequently served as president of the Liechtenstein Bar Association from 2005 to 2014.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/KEYSTONE/S. Beham
Pandeli Majko, Albania
Majko, who recently became Albania’s Minister of State for Diaspora, served as the Albanian prime minister from September 1998 to October 1999, and again from February to July 2002. When he first took office in 1998 he was just 30 years old. Majko’s political career started very early, with his election to the Albanian parliament in 1992.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Simon
Igor Luksic, Montenegro
The Montenegrin foreign minister from 2012 to 2016, Igor Luksic from the Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro was prime minister of his country from 2010 to 2012, and was aged 34 when he assumed office. Prior to this, from 2004 onwards, he served as his country’s finance minister — a job he was given when he was not yet 30.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/B. von Jutrczenka
Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan
In 1998, Benazir Bhutto became the first woman to win a free election in an Islamic country. She was sworn in as prime minister of Pakistan on 2 December 1988, at the age of 35. Bhutto held the office until 1990, then again from 1993 to 1996. From 1999 to 2007 she lived in exile in Dubai. She was assassinated on 27 December 2007, two weeks before again contesting the parliamentary elections.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/T. röstlund
Viktor Orban, Hungary
The current prime minister of Hungary, who is renowned for his anti-refugee policies, held the office once before, from 1998 to 2002. Orban, the leader and co-founder of the national-conservative Fidesz party, was 35 years old when he was first elected.
Image: Wikipedia
Atifete Jahjaga, Kosovo
Jahjaga was president of Kosovo from 2011 to 2016, becoming the first woman to head the Kosovar government. At 36, she was also the youngest person elected to that office in the country. The minimum age for candidates is 35.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/A. Nimani
Emmanuel Macron, France
On May 7, 2017 Emmanuel Macron won the second round of the presidential election against the French nationalist Marine Le Pen, becoming the youngest-ever president of France at the age of 39. Prior to this, from 2014 to 2016, he was the minister of the economy under socialist President Francois Hollande.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Dedert
Youssef Chahed, Tunisia
Chahed, the current prime minister of Tunisia, was 40 years old when he took office. He held various posts in the country’s first democratically elected government from 2015 onwards, under Prime Minister Habib Essid. After Essid lost a parliamentary vote of confidence, the Tunisian president eventually proposed Chahed as the new prime minister, and he assumed the office on 27 August 2016.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Messara
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It is the first time in 11 years that the OVP has taken over the chancellery. The party was the junior coalition partner in the outgoing government led by the Social Democrats (SPO), which suffered a setback in the polls, coming in second place.
Tougher immigration controls
The coalition deal brings the Freedom Party into government for the first time in twelve years after it secured third place in the election on a hardline immigration stance. It was the junior coalition partner in 1986-87 and 2000-05. Previous coalition governments with the FPO have all collapsed before the five-year period of governance, with the longest lasting less than three years.
The shift in Austrian politics to the right has raised concerns about the FPO's Eurosceptic and anti-Islam positions.
However, both parties oppose deeper political integration among EU states and want Austria's borders secured against immigration until the EU's external borders are secured.
