Austria: Why Kurz’s resignation does not change anything politically

After the resignation
Sebastian Kurz has resigned as Federal Chancellor – but that is not a real “short cut”

Even if he no longer holds the post of Federal Chancellor: Kurz still has the strings in hand.

© Georg Hochmuth / APA / DPA

The office of Federal Chancellor now goes to the Foreign Minister, but Kurz himself remains party and parliamentary leader of the ÖVP. The Greens achieved what they wanted. But politically, that hardly changes anything.

Sebastian Kurz avoided the word “resignation”. He preferred to speak of the less definitive “making space”. It seems that Kurz left Austria as Chancellor to come back. In his seven-minute speech he tried to create the impression of a statesman who acts out of responsibility for his homeland. “It’s not about me, it’s about Austria.” The question that arose was: Why only now, why not yesterday or the day before yesterday? The highly explosive corruption allegations of the public prosecutor’s office have been known since Wednesday.

The 35-year-old gave an answer that assigned the “buck” to the Greens and political opponents. The increasingly concrete forging of an anti-short alliance of four parties had led to a stalemate that he now had to break like a Gordian knot. It would be a risk for the country to place government responsibility in the hands of such different parties; there is a threat of a political experiment that ultimately depends on the mercy of the right-wing FPÖ, said ÖVP politician Kurz. What Kurz did not mention: The initially demonstrative support by the top ÖVP politicians in the federal states had cracked.

From Federal Chancellor to Shadow Chancellor

Briefly, however, remains party leader and becomes the future parliamentary group leader of the ÖVP. This met with the greatest skepticism among the opposition. This means that he remains a central political figure, said SPÖ leader Pamela Rendi-Wagner. He is no longer Federal Chancellor, but the shadow chancellor of the republic. The “short system” will be retained.

In particular, Rendi-Wagner had recently worked almost offensively on the formation of a government. On Friday and Saturday she ventured far out of cover. She argued openly about an alliance with the FPÖ at the federal level. This has actually been an absolute no-go for the SPÖ for more than 30 years. Your justification “extraordinary situations require extraordinary actions” has probably frightened some Social Democrats.

For the Greens, the cow now seems off the ice. They had gambled high. An “impeccable person” had to replace Kurz, they had demanded. Vice-Chancellor and Greens boss Werner Kogler was almost boiling when he publicly summarized what was on his mind: “It’s not just about the accusations of the corporate and corruption prosecutor’s office. It’s about what comes out of these chat messages (…) Namely, that in the center of power of the ÖVP there is a shocking, a frightening, actually a horrible moral picture. “

A clever move for your own comeback

There is no question that the Greens briefly overthrew the throne on Tuesday in the planned vote of no confidence in order not to reveal their own identity as an anti-corruption party. Now everything indicates that the ÖVP-Greens coalition will be continued – at a time when the Greens have negotiated favorite projects such as the eco-social tax reform or a climate ticket for all buses and trains. The projects are now becoming a reality. Kogler can be satisfied.

With Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg as his Kurz successor, the Greens can live safely. The 52-year-old top diplomat is well-versed and agile. His name does not appear in any of the investigation files. In matters of migration, however, the Greens are not expected to respond to their requests. Schallenberg was not available for humanitarian gestures such as the admission of at least a few Afghan refugees.

Kurz, who is about to become a father for the first time, continues to have a very large political stage. The decisive factor for his chances of a comeback to the top of the country will be whether he can really refute the prosecution’s allegations. In the past few days – and in his resignation speech – he has shown himself to be very confident that he will succeed. Anyone who has read the 104 pages of the public prosecutor’s office about the Kurz team and its alleged machinations knows that this will probably be the hardest task for Kurz in the next few months.

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DPA

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