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PARTISAN REVIEW
Why then has the country been made an international pariah? Its
fourteen partners in the European Union have decreed that all bilateral
political contacts with Austria be suspended. This complicates and even
impedes Austria's participation in the decision-making of the Union.
Still, the indirect effects of this decision are even more far-reaching and
severe; they sanction a generally hostile mood, as well as a drastic loss
of image and standing which will affect many fields such as foreign
investment, tourism, and cultural exchanges. The damage thus inflicted
will be difficult to repair. To do so will take a long time-probably sev–
eral decades.
How did the decision of the EU fourteen come about? How can their
sanctions be justified?
From
I945
to
I966,
and again since
I986,
Austria was ruled by a
"big" coalition between the center-right People's Party (OVP), or "the
Blacks," who rallied with the Social Democrats (SPO), or "the Reds,"
who swim in the mainstream of the European center-left parties. Ever
since
I986,
the Blacks had threatened
to
pull out of this "big" coalition
and join the Freedom Party (FPO). In
I996,
the leader of the OVP–
now chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel-even triggered new general elec–
tions, hoping to obtain enough votes to overtake the SPO in order
to
become head of an OVP-FPO coalition government. The move back–
fired with losses for the People's Party and gains for the Social Democ–
rats. The "big" coalition between Red and Black survived, but uneasily;
the OVP continued
to
search for an end to this" big coalition." In fact,
the OVP had always maintained the option of forming a coalition with
the Freedom Party, and quite flagrantly. Why then did the European
Union not react earlier and postpone such reaction until a time when
even massive intervention from abroad could no longer change the
course of events?
Between
I996
and
I999,
the SPO made far-reaching and fiscally
costly concessions to the OVP to keep the coalition alive. But bickering
continued right up to the elections on October 3,
I999.
Both the Social
Democrats and the People's Party lost votes, and the Freedom Party
came in second. A fourth party-"the Greens"-gained handsomely. Of
the
I93
seats in Parliament,
65
went
to
the SPO, 52 each
to
the OVP
and the FPO, and
I4
to
the Greens.
The Freedom Party gained, roughly in equal parts, from the Reds and
the Blacks-and now has more blue-collar voters than the Social
Democrats. The latter lost not only to the Freedom Party, but to an even
greater extent
to
political apathy. Nearly a tenth of its traditional voters
did not go to the polls.
