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Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 July 2000 Issue No. 491 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 July 2000 Issue No. 491
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Alpine bombshell
By Dominic Coldwell
Wolfgang Schüssel, leader of Austria's ruling conservative People's Party (…VP), has done it again. In February, the Austrian chancellor prompted his European Union partners to impose sanctions on Vienna after defying an EU resolution and including the far-right Freedom Party (FP…) in Austria's new coalition government. Earlier this month, Schüssel stunned the EU once more by agreeing to FP… demands for holding a national referendum on the boycott this autumn.
The decision came after Schüssel's personal plea to lift the sanctions was met with frosty silence at June's EU summit meeting in the Portuguese town of Santa Mar’a da Feira. This month, Schüssel agreed to a Portuguese proposal for three EU experts to monitor Austria's human rights performance in the hope that the boycott might be cancelled following publication of the panel's report.
But France, which assumed the rotating EU presidency at the beginning of the month, has refused to put relations with Austria back on an even keel before the end of the year, saying that the experts' findings would not be reviewed under its presidency. As a result, the FP…'s controversial former leader and governor of Carinthia, Jörg Haider, convinced Schüssel to ask the population whether the government should, "as part of the impending [EU] reform treaty, ensure with all suitable means" that the boycott be rescinded -- a move that the Roman paper Il Messagero labelled "a political missile from the Alps."
The terms in which the referendum is couched have raised fears that Austria, a generous contributor to the EU budget, might retaliate against the EU's "Austracism" by vetoing French plans for enlarging the organisation and streamlining its bloated bureaucracy at December's summit in Nice. Any revision of EU treaties or the induction of new member states requires unanimous consent. Austria has already blocked an agreement on a cross-border tax on private savings in June, and Schüssel has suggested that "the tensions within the European family have to be resolved first before enlargement." Somewhat more caustically, Haider snapped, "Now that France has said nothing will change during the French [EU] presidency, we say quite bluntly that nothing will move either."
A paralysis of EU reforms, however, is not the only problem. By alienating a democratically-elected government, the EU has established a dangerous precedent for interfering in the domestic politics of member states. Critics also claim that France and Belgium have been motivated more by a desire to send a strong message to popular rightist parties at home than their eagerness to help minorities in Austria. At the same time, the sanctions enjoy little support. According to a recent poll, more than 70 per cent of Germans and 50 per cent of Britons oppose the boycott.
Nor has the collective punishment seriously dented the FP…'s power. It is true that Haider stepped down from the chairmanship of his party in March and Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel has attributed his resignation to the sanctions. But Austrian Socialists view the move as a ploy to insulate Haider from the government's unpopular austerity package before he registers a bid for the chancellorship in the 2004 elections. Meanwhile, the party has earned kudos for revising the corrupt system of Proporz, according to which the …VP and the Social-Democratic Party (SP…) have divided managerial positions in public sector banking and industry among themselves for the past 17 years of joint rule. Haider's successor, Austrian Vice-Chancellor Susanne Riess-Passer, has also carefully toed her mentor's line, allowing the former chairman to continue calling the shots behind the scenes. Two weeks ago, he persuaded Schüssel to call the referendum.
On top of all this, the boycott appears to be counter-productive. While the FP… registered approval ratings of 33 per cent in January, its popularity slumped to 27 per cent in March following cuts in public spending, tax hikes, and an increase in the minimum age of retirement. The government's belt-tightening particularly alienated the blue-collar workers who had deserted the SP… and flocked to Haider's party in the last general elections.
Now, however, the FP… has capitalised on French intransigence to boost its standing. Nine out of 10 Austrians, including most Socialists, oppose the sanctions. Schüssel, who initially rejected the idea of holding a referendum for fear of further souring relations with the EU, could hardly resist such pressure.
So ultimately, what is the point in maintaining sanctions that not only damage European cohesion, but also redound to Haider's political benefit? For all the European bickering over Austria, the current debate bears a silver lining. Rarely has the EU spoken with one voice in foreign affairs, and the definition it has chosen as to the limits of political respectability is a positive step toward shaping a future European state.
Nor have the original reasons for imposing the sanctions disappeared. It is true that Haider has instituted neither a fascist nor an authoritarian government -- but then, neither has he become chancellor, nor has the FP… attained enough votes to rule on its own. The party's current docility can hardly be taken as an indication of what Haider might do should he seize further power. If anything, the racist demagoguery with which Haider has salted his campaign speeches is more likely a harbinger of things to come. In April, the Lower Austrian FP… leader Ernest Windholz addressed his party with a slogan used by the Nazi German Waffen-SS.
In addition, the FP… has begun cracking down on the press. In February, an Upper Austrian newspaper editor was sacked for criticising the government. Elfriede Jelinek, of Austria's state television ORF, has received several anonymous threats in the mail and ORF's left-wing superintendent Gertraud Knoll received a letter saying "too bad Hitler didn't gas you."
Democratic liberties across Austria have also come under attack. The government has repeatedly denied humanitarian organisations access to 70 African asylum seekers arrested in January on uncorroborated charges of drug trafficking. Because key witnesses for the prosecution remained anonymous in the subsequent trial, defendants were deprived of a fair defence.
In March, police invaded an office of Austria's Green Party that was dispensing legal advice to asylum seekers -- the first time a branch of the parliamentary opposition has been searched without a judicial warrant. An anonymous phone call allegedly reported the presence of a "black African fingering a gun," but no such figure was found on the premises. Nonetheless, police arrested eight foreigners and shunted them off to their home countries before they could legally claim political asylum before an Austrian court.
Vienna's bureau of the human rights organisation Prison Watch International speculates that the raid was in retaliation for a video released by the Green Party depicting hooded officers of a newly-formed special police unit leading a peaceful anti-government activist off at gunpoint. The female protester was released from prison a week later -- beaten and bruised.
In the future, such lack of accountability could well become the norm. Three weeks ago, Austria's Parliament passed laws authorising the secret service to place anyone who publicly criticises the military under surveillance. In cases deemed prejudicial to national security, intelligence services may even refrain from informing the state's constitutional supervisor of human rights violations committed as part of the investigation.
The Austrian case is not as simple as casting Haider in Hitler's role. Whatever the motivations behind the EU's shaky agreement to freeze its relations with Austria, there is presently no alternative to keeping a close watch over developments in Austria, especially if the EU wants to build a more democratic and tolerant Europe in the years to come.
