Negotiations with ÖVP

Will the party leaders meet on Wednesday?

On Tuesday evening, the FPÖ presidium unanimously gave the green light for official negotiations with the ÖVP. In the picture: Herbert Kickl

(Bild: APA/HELMUT FOHRINGER)

The coalition talks between the FPÖ and ÖVP are picking up speed. After Freedom Party Chairman Herbert Kickl had already extended an invitation to his counterpart, Christian Stocker, after the blue presidium the day before, the two party leaders held their first meeting on Wednesday afternoon. Substantive talks are to follow on Friday.

On Tuesday evening, the FPÖ Executive Committee unanimously gave the green light for official negotiations with the ÖVP. Kickl called Stocker immediately afterwards.

"Confidentiality agreed"
The FPÖ leader and the managing ÖVP chairman met on Wednesday afternoon for an initial discussion about the start of possible coalition negotiations Neither the FPÖ nor the ÖVP wanted to comment on the content of the discussion between the party leaders afterwards. Confidentiality had been agreed, according to the FPÖ. Stocker had previously accepted the FPÖ's invitation to talks on Wednesday. According to reports, the first substantive negotiations are planned for Friday, when the steering groups of both parties could meet.

Kickl's core team with a German-national flavor
Unsurprisingly, Kickl (56) is relying on loyalists for his team. However, four of the seven members of the core team are also members of German-national academic associations - something that did not bother the Turks when they formed the last government with the Blue Party.

In contrast to the lists for the National Council elections, where the FPÖ focused on gender equality, there is only one woman - 55-year-old lawyer Susanne Fürst - on the team.

As party leader, Herbert Kickl is naturally at the head of the negotiating team. The 56-year-old native of Carinthia is considered to be rhetorically adept and relentless when it comes to content.

(Bild: AP)

As party leader, the Villach-born worker's son Kickl is naturally at the head of the negotiating team. Even before the official invitation to negotiations, he put the rod in the ÖVP's window and demanded honesty and unity. Although Kickl wants to become "People's Chancellor", he does not necessarily have to, as he repeatedly emphasizes.

Should the talks fail, Kickl should at least not be afraid of a new election, as he made clear. He could have made it easy for himself in talks with the Federal President and taken the more comfortable route, given his party's "winning run" and good poll ratings.

"I trust the Freedom Party to materialize these poll results," said the party leader. "I have opted for the path of national political responsibility."

Which team will the ÖVP take into the negotiations?
Unlike the Freedom Party, the ÖVP did not want to announce the team with which it will enter the negotiations on Wednesday. "There will be a negotiating team when there are coalition negotiations," the party said.

It is to be expected that outgoing Chancellor Karl Nehammer and Karoline Edtstadler, who has announced her retirement from politics, will no longer be part of the current negotiating team. However, Stocker, club chairman August Wöginger, Claudia Plakolm and Harald Mahrer, president of the Chamber of Commerce and head of the Federation of Austrian Chambers of Commerce, are likely to remain.