Austria’s Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen wants to appoint Alexander Schallenberg as interim chancellor. He announced that he would entrust the 55-year-old ÖVP politician “with the continuation of the administration of the Federal Chancellery” on Friday. The Foreign Minister should continue to lead the current coalition of Conservatives and Greens until a new government is formed.
The previous Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) announced his resignation at the weekend after his efforts to form a coalition between the conservative ÖVP, the social democratic SPÖ and the liberal Neos failed.
The party leader of the right-wing FPÖ, Herbert Kickl, was tasked with negotiating the new government coalition. Kickl’s Freedom Party had clearly won the parliamentary election three months ago, but were initially left out of coalition talks due to the other parties’ unwillingness to work with the extreme right-wing party.
Kickl now announced talks with the ÖVP – and the conservative party of the previous Chancellor Nehammer agreed to do so.
Interim Chancellor and Foreign Minister Schallenberg will not be available as chief diplomat to a government with Kickl as Chancellor, his spokeswoman confirmed on Monday evening. He stands by his rejection of working with the FPÖ leader – just like Nehammer.
Schallenberg was already interim chancellor in Austria for almost two months after the then head of government Sebastian Kurz resigned in October 2021 as a result of a corruption scandal.
Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that Schallenberg had already been appointed Chancellor. In fact, this isn’t supposed to happen until Friday. We apologize for the error.
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