Following a record five-month delay for a new administration, Austria’s new government took office, with Christian Stocker as chancellor leading a hitherto untested three-party coalition.
The new government will have to deal with rising unemployment, a recession, and a shaky budget.
Its coalition deal, signed on Thursday following the longest negotiations in post-World War II Austria, includes harsh new asylum laws for the European Union country of 9 million people.
This is the country’s first three-party government, bringing together Stocker’s conservative Austrian People’s Party, the centre-left Social Democrats and the liberal Neos.
The alliance in the political centre came together only at the second attempt, after the far-right, anti-immigration and euroskeptic Freedom Party emerged as the strongest political force in a parliamentary election on Sept. 29.
A first attempt collapsed in early January, prompting the resignation of then-Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who had said that his party wouldn’t work under Freedom Party leader Herbert Kickl.
Stocker took over from Nehammer as leader of the People’s Party and went into negotiations with Kickl on a possible coalition, but those collapsed on Feb. 12 amid mutual finger-pointing.
The three parties in the centre then renewed their effort to find common ground, heading off the possibility of an early election. On Sunday, the coalition deal received strong backing from members of Neos, which is entering a federal government for the first time — the final step before the government could take office.
Stocker, 64, becomes chancellor even though he wasn’t running for the job when Austrians voted in September and has not previously served in a national government. Social Democratic leader Andreas Babler became the new vice chancellor.
Neos leader Beate Meinl-Reisinger took over as foreign minister from Alexander Schallenberg, who also served as interim chancellor for the past two months after Nehammer’s resignation.
