"Corresponds to his nature"

Rosenkranz: Orban’s visit has been planned for some time

President of the National Council Walter Rosenkranz (FPÖ)

(Bild: APA/AFP )

The new Freedom Party National Council President Walter Rosenkranz will receive the right-wing conservative Hungarian head of government Viktor Orbán in parliament on Thursday. The meeting with FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl and others in the FPÖ had been planned for some time, Rosenkranz explained on Sunday. Orban himself had then asked him for a meeting at relatively short notice after his election as President of the National Council.

The original reason for Orbán's visit, whose Fidesz party sits in a joint parliamentary group with the FPÖ in the EU Parliament, was a newspaper discussion event on the war in Ukraine, which was also attended by former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.

According to Rosenkranz, it was in keeping with his nature and actually also his duty as President to meet foreign representatives if they wanted to meet him or invite them, and to comply with protocol.

Viktor Orbán visiting - Russian President Vladimir Putin is also welcome to visit Rosenkranz, subject to certain conditions.

(Bild: APA/AP)

Rosenkranz would receive Putin, Identitarians would not
He described the question of whether he would also receive Russian President Vladimir Putin as "very delicate". But in principle, his credo is: "You have to talk to everyone, especially if they are aggressors." The prerequisite for a meeting with Putin, however, was that he saw the chance that this could be "even the smallest contribution to stopping this killing on the war front between Russia and Ukraine".

If it was a question of drinking a glass of wine from the Wachau, then no. Under no circumstances would Rosenkranz invite members of the Identitarian movement to parliament.

When asked about this, Rosenkranz said that "you can rule it out" that members of the Identitarian movement would be invited to an event in parliament or that they themselves would hold an event there. The President of the National Council explained that he had never personally had any dealings with Identitarians; the only time he had been informed that Identitarians were present was at an election event in Wiener Neustadt. However, on the national holiday, Rosenkranz gave an interview to the former leader of the Vienna Identitarians for the right-wing extremist broadcaster Auf1.

The interview and Orbán's visit were criticized by the SPÖ on Sunday. The first foreign policy meeting between the new President of the National Council and Viktor Orbán was "intolerable", said SPÖ constitutional spokesperson Jörg Leichtfried in a press release. It was also "absolutely unacceptable" that Rosenkranz had no fear of contact with the Identitarian movement and even gave them an exclusive interview, Leichtfried said.

Meanwhile, the Federal Chancellery confirmed on Sunday that no meeting between Federal Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) and Orbán was planned in Vienna.