Due to visit to Ukraine

“NATO aunt”: Kickl rages about Meinl-Reisinger

Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger (NEOS) with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj in Kiev. Her first trip abroad causes horror among the FPÖ.

(Bild: APA/MICHAEL GRUBER)

On Friday, Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger (NEOS) made her first trip abroad to Kiev to visit Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj. This annoys the FPÖ and its party leader. "She is acting like an EU or NATO envoy and not like the foreign minister of perpetually neutral Austria," Kickl wrote on Facebook.

According to the blue front man, the NEOS leader's "problematic understanding of office" is damaging Austria's interests and security. 

"If Meinl-Reisinger absolutely has to make her first real trip abroad to Kiev, she should have used it to call for negotiations, a ceasefire, peace and an end to senseless deaths," Kickl went on to criticize.

His party colleague Petra Steger takes the same line. According to her, it is more than questionable that the Foreign Minister of an officially neutral country is making her second trip abroad to a war zone of all places, "while her first trip to Brussels is not even counted as a 'foreign trip'".

The NEOS do not have ten percent of the electorate behind them, but are acting as if they are the spearhead of EU and NATO policy.

Petra Steger, FPÖ-EU-Abgeordnete

"NATO-Beate"
What infuriates the blue MEP even more: "While Austrian citizens are suffering more and more from austerity measures, 'NATO-Beate' is squandering two million euros of taxpayers' money to buy Ukrainian grain for the Middle East."

Blue MEP Petra Steger also sharply criticizes Beate Meinl-Reisnger.

(Bild: Screenshot/X.com)

"This Foreign Minister is finally burying Austria's neutrality"
The blue politician also criticized Meinl-Reisinger for talking about "Austria's solidarity with Ukraine" while deliberately leaving open the possibility of Austrian participation in international peacekeepers. "How far does she want to trample on our neutrality? This Foreign Minister is finally burying Austria's perpetual neutrality," Steger rants.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrij Sybiha (right) and Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger (NEOS)

(Bild: Michael Gruber)

Meinl-Reisinger assures: "Austria will continue to support Ukraine"
Meinl-Reisinger emphasized during her visit abroad - the "Krone" was on site - that Austria will continue to support Ukraine. Politically, economically and in humanitarian terms.

We are only militarily neutral, not politically.

Außenministerin Beate Meinl-Reisinger (NEOS) bei ihrem Ukraine-Besuch

Strikingly, her English was flawless and the speech was spot on. Questions from Ukrainian journalists about Austria's neutrality were answered resolutely. "We are only militarily neutral, not politically," she said.