Controversial Freedom Party leader Joerg Haider prepares for a news conference. (AP) E-Mail This Article Printer-Friendly Version

By William Drozdiak
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, February 1, 2000; Page A1

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 31—In an unprecedented step against a member state, the European Union warned today that it would break off political contacts with any Austrian government that includes the far-right Freedom Party led by the controversial Joerg Haider.

The dramatic threat of diplomatic sanctions by 14 of the EU's 15 member states against a European ally reflected growing alarm over the rise of Haider's party, which advocates a ban on immigration and a halt to expansion of the EU into Eastern Europe.

Haider, the telegenic son of a former Nazi official, led the Freedom Party to second place in parliamentary elections last October and is currently negotiating for his party to join a governing coalition. If he succeeds, it would be the first time since World War II that an extreme right-wing party would enter government in a Western democracy.

Prime Minister Antonio Guterres of Portugal, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, said the EU had decided in a frantic round of consultations to impose punitive measures on Austria if Haider's party joins the government. The measures would include freezing bilateral relations with Vienna, withdrawing support for any of its candidates for international posts and curtailing the role of Austria's ambassadors in EU capitals.

"If a party which has expressed xenophobic views, and which does not abide by the essential values of the European family, comes to power, naturally we won't be able to continue the same relations as in the past, however much we regret it," Guterres told reporters in Lisbon, the Portuguese capital. "Nothing will be as before."

Many EU members fear that the presence of far-right ministers in Austria's government would legitimize other right-wing movements that have challenged ruling establishments in France, Belgium and Italy. Neo-Nazi movements also have been on the rise in EU nations Sweden and Germany, as well as in Norway.

The Freedom Party won a record 27 percent of the vote in the Oct. 3 elections by promising to halt the influx of foreigners, block further expansion of the EU and sweep away ingrained corruption and cronyism that it says has poisoned a 13-year governing alliance between Austria's Social Democrats and the conservative People's Party.

After nearly four months of fruitless negotiations, Viktor Klima, the outgoing Social Democratic chancellor, last week gave up trying to persuade the People's Party to renew their coalition and abandoned hopes of forming a minority government.

People's Party leader Wolfgang Schuessel then embarked on talks to form a rightist ruling alliance in which he offered to share an equal number of ministries with the Freedom Party. Haider, who is governor of the province of Carinthia, agreed to stay out of the cabinet in a bid to mute international criticism. The two parties control 104 of parliament's 183 seats.

If the Freedom Party joins the government, it would subject Austria to the kind of diplomatic isolation it has not experienced since electing former U.N. secretary general Kurt Waldheim president from 1986 to 1992, despite Waldheim's attempts to cover up his Nazi wartime past. Israel has already threatened to break off diplomatic relations with Vienna over the proposed coalition.

Thomas Klestil, Waldheim's successor, has tried for the past four months to sustain the old ruling coalition. Although he has been reluctant to give approval to Schuessel's negotiations with Haider, Klestil seems even more troubled by the alternative of a new election if a government cannot be formed.

Polls say the Freedom Party could win as much as 31 percent of the vote in new elections and possibly displace the Social Democrats as the country's largest party. Under the traditions of Austrian democracy, such an outcome would mean Haider would assume the task of forming a new government and could thus conceivably achieve his long-standing ambition of becoming chancellor.

Schuessel said that work on a coalition pact with the Freedom Party could be completed as early as Tuesday. He expressed outrage today over what he described as unfair and prejudicial treatment by other European governments, which he noted bitterly were run almost exclusively by Social Democratic parties.

"Austria does not need lessons in democracy; we are not a developing country as far as human rights are concerned," he said. "Freedom and human rights are just as secure here as in all other European countries, and that's the way it will stay."

He insisted that the new government's program would contain a preamble that reaffirms Austria's commitments to European integration and acknowledges that the country's past allegiance to Adolf Hitler--who incorporated Austria into the Third Reich--requires special diligence in respecting human rights.

Haider, a populist firebrand who has tripled his party's share of the vote since becoming its leader in 1986, has gained notoriety abroad for praising Nazi Germany's "orderly employment policies" and lauding veterans of the Waffen SS--a branch of Hitler's black-shirted storm troopers--as "decent men of good character." He later apologized for those comments, but he has never been able to shed his reputation as a pariah.

At home, however, Haider has won enthusiastic support from a wide spectrum of the population, especially among young men who fear that an expanded European Union would cost them their jobs by encouraging a flood of East European immigrants willing to work for much lower wages.

Even though Austria has one of Europe's most prosperous economies and lowest unemployment rates, Haider has effectively played up his message of fear by warning that the country will quickly become estranged from its cultural and racial heritage by acquiescing to the free movement of people, capital and goods required by the European Union.

Over the weekend, Haider accused his European critics of interfering in Austria's domestic politics. He called French President Jacques Chirac a failed leader "who has done everything wrong" in recent years and ultimately lost elections. He also branded Belgium corrupt after its foreign minister, Louis Michel, described Haider as "a dangerous man."

Haider apologized for his outbursts today, but his contrite remarks did not mitigate the threat of EU sanctions. French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine said that if Schuessel persists in linking up with Haider's party, "the Austrian government would be subjected to the kind of constant surveillance that no member country of the European Union has ever seen before."

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