Rough EU election campaign

“Fuehrerpartei”: ÖVP takes Kickl-FPÖ to task

EU election: Reinhold Lopatka (ÖVP) rules out a coalition with the FPÖ at federal level.

(Bild: Screenshot/ORF)

Insults, suspicions, accusations: The political exchange of blows between the ÖVP and FPÖ continues. On Sunday, ÖVP EU top candidate Reinhold Lopatka described the Freedom Party as a "leader's party" and ruled out a coalition with the blue party at federal level. The FPÖ's counterattack was not long in coming.

"I consider it impossible to work together with this leader party in the meantime", said Lopatka in the ORF "Pressestunde". This would also apply if FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl were to take a step to the side, because: "The FPÖ is Kickl." 

"The Kickl-FPÖ is completely different"
In the past, he had also worked with the FPÖ in government at federal level, but "the Kickl FPÖ is a completely different one", said Lopatka. He also sees "no one in the environment of the Freedom Party leader who is seriously interested in ending this radicalization".

Lopatka also once again ruled out cooperation with the FPÖ and its allies in the far-right ID group in the EU Parliament. However, the ÖVP candidate can very well imagine working with parties from the right-wing conservative EKR group, such as the post-fascist Fratelli d'Italia of Italian head of government Giorgia Meloni.

Vilimsky counters: "Desperate rhetoric"
His statements were naturally criticized by the FPÖ, which spoke of a "desperate rallying cry" by the ÖVP's top candidate. Lopatka was trying to take the citizens for fools, "to whitewash the catastrophic undesirable developments - keyword illegal immigration, keyword inflation, keyword destruction of prosperity, etc. - and to "pimp" the Freedom Party, said FPÖ top candidate Harald Vilimsky.

Schieder: "ÖVP leaves the back door open"
SPÖ candidate Andreas Schieder, on the other hand, described "Lopatka's attempts to distance himself from the far right" as "completely implausible". The ÖVP is leaving the back door open "and is once again looking to the right when it comes to maintaining its own power", said Schieder.

The NEOS accused the ÖVP of having "long since abandoned the European course". Contrary to its European programme, the People's Party had rejected the idea of a defence union with a European army and was blocking a comprehensive EU asylum and migration pact as well as the Schengen accession of Romania and Bulgaria, criticized the pink EU top candidate Helmut Brandstätter.