"Due to the recent crisis, I assume that the FPOe is going to be the major beneficiary of euroscepticism," he says. The far-right party is going to benefit most from the combination of anger and anti-EU sentiment, reckons Boehm. The third strongest political force is the Freedom Party. ![]() Meanwhile, Hannes Swoboda, well-known in Brussels for heading up the social-democrat faction in the parliament, is retiring. In a recent interview with the political magazine profil, Freund estimated the average monthly gross income of a blue-collar worker at around €3,000. But his media appearances until now have been very poor," says Hofer. "Basically, it was a clever political move to nominate Freund because of his high reputation. Sixty-two-year old Eugen Freund, a recently retired and well-known TV anchor, is to try his hand at raising the centre-left's popularity. The Social Democrats attracted a lot more media attention with their nomination. Wolfgang Boehm, political editor at Die Presse, says: "Many people will vote for Karas because of his pro-European engagement and because he seems trustworthy but I do not think he has the ability to offset the party's low profile. "It was definitely the right decision to nominate him, but what is clear is that Karas has to keep his critical stance towards his own party if he wants to succeed," says Hofer. Strongly pro-EU, he already has 16 years of experience as an EU deputy. Othmar Karas, vice president of the European Parliament, is the party's leading candidate. In the 2009 European elections, the centre-right People's Party took first place scoring exactly 30 percent, followed by the Social Democrats with 23.7 percent.īut Thomas Hofer, expert in political communications and associate professor at the University of Applied Science in Vienna, says it is "rather illusory" to think they will manage the same feat or more in May. The Social Democrats are set to focus on reducing unemployment, while the People's Party will emphasise strengthening the economy. Meanwhile the European Parliament election campaigns are likely to be dominated by the same themes as last September's national elections. "I also wonder if the European election campaigns are important enough for political parties to put a lot of effort and resources into them." Unemployment and the economyĪccording to a survey published last autumn by Eurobarometer, most Austrians worry about unemployment, the economic situation and the rising cost of living. "In practice, the discussion would only reach those who are open for European issues," he says. ![]() The economic crisis and the travails of the eurozone could, in theory at least, be meaty topics for Austrian parties to try and engage voters about the European Union.īut Filzmaier indicates that although the issues are much discussed at political level, it would be difficult to make the debate broader. He is doubtful that the trend will be bucked in May. "The European Parliament election turnouts have been constantly decreasing since Austria's accession to the EU in 1995," says Peter Filzmaier, head of the Institute for Strategic Analysis in Vienna. In 2009, only 46 percent of voters went to the EU urns. While voter turnout for last year's national election was 74.9 percent, it is expected to be much less for the European election. The September results were also a wake-up call for the centre-right People's Party which lost support among its traditional vote base – the middle class. It received 33 percent of all working-class votes while the Social Democrats managed 24 percent of this constituency. The vote breakdown showed that the party – led by Heinz-Christian Strache, a member of a student fraternity that admires German nationalism – was poaching voters from the Social Democrats. ![]() Combined they represented 50.9 percent of the vote – their worst score in the history of the Second Republic.īy contrast, the hard-right Freedom Party, part of the European Alliance for Freedom, scored its best result since 1999, gaining 21.4 percent.
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