(Adnkronos) – The Austrian People’s Party (Ovp), the Social Democratic Party of Austria (Spo) and the liberal alliance Neos have kicked off a historic round of talks in an attempt to form a government coalition that excludes the Freedom Party (Fpo), the far-right force that won the September elections but lacks the numbers to govern.
The tripartite talks began today after Neos-New Austria and the Liberal Forum joined the negotiations between the conservatives and the social democrats. Their leader, Beate Meinl Reisinger, said there is an “urgent need to reform the political agenda” and made it clear that things cannot go on like this, given the country’s difficult economic situation. At the moment, Ovp and Spo need Neos as a third partner to obtain a sufficiently large majority, given that they would have a fragile majority and a margin of only one seat, according to the Austrian daily “Die Presse”.
The talks begin three weeks after the country’s president, Alexander van der Bellen, gave the interim chancellor, Karl Nehammer, the mandate to form a “stable, effective and integrated” coalition government capable of “solving the country’s problems”, since no party has agreed to negotiate with Fpo leader Herbert Kickl. Van der Bellen stressed that these talks should take place in “the shortest possible time”, although he reiterated that they could last “as long as necessary” to ensure the country’s stability. “Elections are not a race where the party that comes first automatically forms the government,” he said.
