(6 Jan 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
++CLIENTS PLEASE NOTE: IGNORE EDIT SENT EARLIER AND REPLACE WITH THIS ONE WHICH ADDS A SOUNDBITE IN SHOT 7++
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Vienna, Austria – 6 January 2025
1. Alexander Van der Bellen, Austrian President, arriving for briefing
2. SOUNDBITE (German) Alexander Van der Bellen, Austrian President:
"Mr Kickl (Freedom Party leader Herbert Kickl) has the confidence to find viable solutions within the framework of government negotiations. And he wants this responsibility. I asked him that explicitly. I have therefore instructed him to enter into talks with the ÖVP (Austrian People’s Party) to form a federal government. Herbert Kickl will keep me informed about the progress of these talks.”
3. Mid of camera operator
4. SOUNDBITE (German) Alexander Van der Bellen, Austrian President:
"I did not take this step lightly. I will continue to take care that the principles and rules of our constitution are correctly respected and adhered to.”
5. Close of Austrian flag
6. SOUNDBITE (German) Alexander Van der Bellen, Austrian President:
"The economic environment is difficult. Austria is in a persistent recession, unemployment is rising; At the same time our state budget must be restructured. It’s not likely that all the measures will be popular, but they will have to be implemented. And let’s not forget the geopolitical threat we are facing, particularly from Russia’s war of aggression. Constructively strengthening European cooperation in the Union, also in the interest of Austrian industry and exporters. And we also spoke at length about the freedom of the media in Austria."
7. Van der Bellen leaving
STORYLINE:
The leader of Austria’s Freedom Party received a mandate Monday to form a new government, which would be the first headed by the far right since World War II if he succeeds.
The anti-immigration and euroskeptic Freedom Party, which opposes sanctions against Russia and is led by Herbert Kickl, won Austria’s parliamentary election in September.
It took 28.8% of the vote and beating outgoing Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s conservative Austrian People’s Party into second place.
But in October, President Alexander Van der Bellen gave Nehammer the first chance to form a new government after Nehammer’s party said it wouldn’t go into government with the Freedom Party under Kickl and others refused to work with the Freedom Party at all.
Those efforts to form a governing alliance without the far right collapsed in the first few days of the new year and Nehammer said Saturday that he would resign.
The People’s Party then signaled that it might be open to working under Kickl.
Van der Bellen said after meeting Kickl for about an hour at the presidential palace Monday that he had tasked the Freedom Party leader with holding talks with the People’s Party to form a new government.
“I did not take this step lightly,” the president told reporters.
“I will continue to take care that the principles and rules of our constitution are correctly respected and adhered to.”
The far right and the conservatives have governed together before, but on previous occasions with the Freedom Party as the junior partner. Most recently, they ran Austria from 2017 to 2019 in a government in which Kickl — a 56-year-old with a taste for provocation — served as interior minister. It collapsed in a scandal surrounding the Freedom Party’s leader at the time.
Van der Bellen noted that the new government won’t face an easy task.
“It’s not likely that all the measures will be popular, but they will have to be implemented.”
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