What Austria's electoral results mean for EU affairs

euronews (in English)

Austria could become the latest European Union member state to have a far-right party in power after the Freedom Party (FPÖ) secured victory in Sunday's general election.

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00:00The victory of Austria's far-right Freedom Party, FPÖ, at the Sunday's elections marks

00:06another win for Euroscepticism in Europe.

00:10It's the first time since the Second World War the far-right has finished first in an

00:13election.

00:15Despite narrowly winning the election, the FPÖ faces challenges forming a coalition,

00:21with the other major parties refusing to work with its controversial leader, Herbert Kickl.

00:26What they're very vocal about is anti-migration.

00:30So this was very, very strong in the past decades and again in the campaign.

00:41And one can speculate, one still has to really look at these results and also look at polls,

00:48opinion polls, why people voted the way they voted.

00:52But what we hear is that this migration course, pushing very strong the anti-migration discourse,

01:04and that we also see in other European countries, that seems to have worked well.

01:10The far-right has recently scored several wins across Europe.

01:13However, Hungary is still the only member state with a single far-right party that has

01:18a majority in power.

01:21Other far-right parties are in coalition governments, such as in Italy, the Netherlands, Finland,

01:26Czechia and Croatia.

01:30In both France and Germany, far-right parties might not be in power yet, but have made historic wins.

01:39For Europe at large, we see that there is, of course, a shift to the right, and we have

01:44to ask ourselves the question, why?

01:48And what to do about it?

01:50I think what is also very important is that it's very clear you can no longer ignore this

01:57and go back to business as usual.

02:00It is still not clear if the FPÖ will be able to form a coalition government in Austria.

02:04However, if they do lead a coalition, they will join other far-right voices in Europe

02:09who want to tighten migration policy as well as minimize aid to Ukraine.

02:15The FPÖ joins Hungary's Viktor Orban in calling for some powers to be returned to Austria

02:20from the European Union.

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