Austria’s far right storms to victory

GOOD MONDAY MORNING. I’m Nick Vinocur, getting you started in what’s shaping up to be another huge week in European and international politics. Sarah Wheaton will be back in the chair Tuesday.
PARTY FOUNDED BY EX-NAZIS WINS AUSTRIA’S NATIONAL ELECTION: It’s another rude awakening for Europe. Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ) has stormed to victory in a national election, putting the Euroskeptic, anti-migrant, Russia-friendly group within striking distance of leading Austria’s government, Matt Karnitschnig reports.
Triumphant: “The results today couldn’t have been clearer,” crowed Herbert Kickl, the FPÖ’s leader, insisting that his party should take power in Vienna.
History lesson: The FPÖ was founded in the 1950s by former members of the SS and other Nazi formations. Kickl promised followers that if he won, he would rule as their Volkskanzler, or “people’s chancellor,” a term once used by Adolf Hitler.
Not so fast: According to Matt, our resident Austria-explainer, the country’s constitution and complicated coalition math make it “unlikely” that Kickl will become the next chancellor. But the result (which is still preliminary) does suggest the FPÖ could build an alliance with the center-right ÖVP as long as Kickl isn’t the front man.
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That’s a sobering prospect for Brussels. If the FPÖ manages to get a foot in the door of Austria’s chancellery, Vienna could join a Euroskeptic, Russia-friendly bloc that includes Hungary, Slovakia and (possibly) the Czech Republic after an election next year. Zoom out to include governments that aren’t specifically Russia-friendly or Euroskeptic, and you can add Italy and the Netherlands to the list of hard-right, anti-immigrant governments in Europe. Widen out further to include governments that are merely conservative and … you get my drift.
Bottom line: Europe is still in the midst of a surge in support for right-wing and far-right parties that is reshaping the bloc’s migration policy and showing no signs of weakening (more on that below). 
DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN? A similar thing happened nearly 25 years ago when the FPÖ, then led by the late Jörg Haider, placed second in a national election. The FPÖ struck a power-sharing deal with the ÖVP, forcing Haider to step aside in favor of the latter party’s leader, who became chancellor. 
Back then: The idea of having a major European government backed up by a far-right party caused Brussels to freak out. The bloc’s members imposed diplomatic sanctions against Vienna, including suspending high-level meetings. Ministers openly discussed excluding Austria from the European Union. 
Time flies: Can you imagine similar measures being taken today? In the 24 years since Haider’s FPÖ entered Austria’s government, the bloc has not gone as far to isolate and penalize a member country as it did with Austria back in 2000, despite Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s defiance of EU rule-of-law standards and his courtship of autocrats like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
Comfortably numb: Maybe that’s because the shock value of having a party founded by ex-Nazis on the doorstep of power has worn off. Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy heads the ruling coalition in Rome. The hardline Alternative for Germany (AfD) recently won a state election in Germany’s east. And France’s National Rally, which still sports the tricolor flame as its logo as an homage to Italy’s neo-fascist MSFT movement, is the biggest single party in France’s national parliament.
Unlearning is hard: Or maybe Europe has learned its lesson from the FPÖ’s entry into government a little too well: The sanctions against Vienna are broadly understood here to have backfired, and are frequently invoked as a reason why Brussels should not crack down harder on parties or governments that flout its values.
PLAYBOOK SITS DOWN WITH FRANCE’S NEW EUROPE MINISTER: In his first interview with the press since entering the new government, France’s junior minister for Europe Benjamin Haddad told Clea Caulcutt and your Playbook author that Paris will push Brussels to get tougher on irregular migration to the bloc.
New digs: “Everywhere, in all of our countries, beyond the left-right divide, there’s a strong demand from our citizens to take control of our immigration,” Haddad said from his office overlooking Paris’ Seine river. “It doesn’t mean closing our borders, it means choosing our criteria to stay on our territory and being capable of expelling those who should not stay.”
Options, options: Haddad didn’t spell out what changes France wants, but he did say that the start of Ursula von der Leyen’s second term as European Commission president is a chance to “begin deliberations on the next step” of the EU efforts to tighten immigration rules.
Speaking France-ly: There should be “no taboos” in terms of what’s discussed, he said mentioning visa policies, foreign aid and “more ambitious partnerships” with North African countries as potential avenues to pursue.
Step back: Fighting irregular immigration has already emerged as a key focus of France’s new right-leaning government, led by former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier. Last week, the newly appointed interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, called for a “sort of alliance with countries that want a tougher response on immigration to review European legislation that is no longer relevant” — while Barnier has called for “practical measures.”
Coming soon: Expect migration to feature prominently when EU leaders gather at EUCO in mid-October. Some countries are calling for opt-outs from the bloc’s freshly minted Migration and Asylum Pact, while others want interim measures to facilitate the deportation of migrants to third countries. But countries already enjoy considerable latitude on immigration policy, including the option to close their borders, as Germany recently demonstrated. So it’s not clear if the increasingly loud talk on migration is a precursor to policy changes or just more rhetoric.
French influence: Haddad, a 38-year-old former director at the Atlantic Council, touched on other issues during our sit-down, namely France’s influence on the EU stage. Speaking before Thierry Breton’s interview to Le Monde, in which the former European commissioner savaged France’s loss of influence — more on that below — Haddad was unsurprisingly diplomatic: “We have a commissioner [Stéphane Séjourné] who knows Brussels very well, who was president of the [Renew] group in the [European] Parliament, who was foreign minister, and who has close links with the president of the Commission as well as the president of the Republic,” he said. “This influence on themes is spread throughout several portfolios, well beyond the French commissioner’s portfolios.
Read the full write-up of the interview here.
INTRODUCING THE “BARNIER METHOD”: But Haddad, who will report both to Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot and Prime Minister Barnier, said France would “move forward listening” in Brussels. Paris’ approach would need to “include the security imperatives of our partners and especially those who are on the border with Russia and feel legitimately threatened. And we will have to explain that a strong Europe is one that invests in its military to protect them, to protect all 27” members.
New rules of the road: Fresh from a first Council of Ministers gathering with Barnier, Haddad said the new prime minister — a Brussels veteran — had insisted on the need to meaningfully engage with the EU. “You listen to your counterparts, you show up on time, and you sleep on site.” That’s presumably a reminder for French ministers who make Brussels a day trip.
Rightly or wrongly, France has a reputation for high-handedness in Brussels best embodied by Breton’s bull-in-a-china-shop approach in the Berlaymont. The perception that when France is waxing lyrical about Europe, it’s actually pushing French interests, particularly on defense, is hard to shake. Some EU states might welcome the new tone from Barnier.
BRETON SLAMS “EMPRESS” VDL: In that Le Monde interview, Thierry Breton went after his former boss in Brussels — quoting POLITICO in one of his zingers. “In some Brussels newspapers, Ursula von der Leyen is described as ‘Europe’s empress,’” Breton said. “This is embarrassing for Europe, which was not built to have an empress or an emperor. Europe is about balance, serving the general European interest, not that of a single country.”
Division 2: Breton also threw shade at France’s influence in von der Leyen’s new Commission. “France is now relegated to the same level as Italy, Spain, Poland, Finland and Romania. It has to be said that its weight is much diluted compared to the previous Commission,” he said. Colleague Giorgio Leali has more on Breton’s comments.
LE PEN ON TRIAL: Marine Le Pen goes on trial in Paris today, alongside her National Rally party and 26 other individuals. They’re accused of embezzling European Parliament funds through what prosecutors called a “system” to award contracts for parliamentary assistants to individuals who mostly worked on party operations rather than European Union affairs in violation of EU rules. The alleged scheme, which Le Pen denies, took place between 2004 and 2016.
Repercussions: If found guilty, Le Pen could face could face jail time and a fine, as well as a possible five-year ban on running for public office that would prevent her from standing in the 2027 French presidential election. All the details by Victor Goury-Laffont here.
WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING: Israel launched air strikes into Beirut in the early hours of this morning, marking an escalation in the conflict with Iran-backed Hezbollah. Recent Israeli attacks have tended to target points on the city’s periphery. Israel also targeted Iran-backed militants in Yemen on Sunday in response to Houthi missile attacks, hitting targets in the port city of Hodeidah.
Biden to talk to Netanyahu: U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters on board Air Force One last night that he would speak with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu as he seeks to avert a full-scale war in the Middle East. “We really have to avoid it,” Biden said, without specifying when he planned to speak with the Israeli leader. The U.S. is increasing its military presence in the region, my Stateside colleagues report.
Tehran’s response: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told CNN that he wanted “regional countries, Islamic countries” to stand together to fight against Israel.
MISSING OUT ON MILLIONS: The far right and far left in the European Parliament will miss out on European Union funding because the paperwork is too complicated. Two new parties in the Parliament — the Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) on the far right and the European Left Alliance for the People and the Planet (ELA) on the far left — had until Monday to apply for the cash but faced what insiders described as overwhelming bureaucracy. Max Griera and Hanne Cokelaere have more here.
BLOWING THE WHISTLE: Vassilios Skouris, a chairperson of FIFA’s ethics committee, simultaneously serves on a committee that vets judges nominated to sit on the Court of Justice of the European Union — which is deliberating over multiple cases involving world football’s governing body, Ali Walker and Seb Starcevic reveal this morning.
Yellow card: “It is similar to a lawyer working for repeated and frequent litigants such as Google or Microsoft, sitting in that selecting committee, deciding on the appointment or renewal of judges that could decide cases involving such companies,” one leading expert on EU law told Ali and Seb.
VUČIĆ FOR LUNCH: Matt Karnitschnig and Una Hajdari have a top read out this morning, which contains a handy lesson on food diplomacy, Aleksandar Vučić style. The Serbian leader insisted on taking Matt and Una to one of his favorite restaurants, housed in the grand Belgrade Cooperative. Was this Vučić the gourmand, just trying to share one of Belgrade’s best eateries? Or was this Vučić the skilled chess player, who is at times frustrated with POLITICO’s coverage of his government, was trying to soften them up? Read it in full here.
GEORGIA ON MY MIND: Russia is open to a compromise that could see its troops leave Georgia’s Moscow-backed breakaway regions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, my colleague Gabriel Gavin reports.
DON’T PROTECT ABUSERS, POPE SAYS: Pope Francis said Sunday that bishops who have abused children need to be brought to justice and not protected by church authorities, following several days of public outrage in Belgium over the Catholic Church’s dark record of obfuscation of pedophilia in its ranks. “Evil must not be hidden. Evil must be brought out into the open,” Francis said in unscripted remarks to thousands of people gathered for a mass at King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels. Read Ben Munster’s account here.
TRUMP SCALES UP VIOLENT RHETORIC: Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump on Sunday called for “one real rough, nasty” and “violent day” of police retaliation in order to eradicate crime “immediately.” “One rough hour — and I mean real rough — the word will get out and it will end immediately, you know? It will end immediately,” Trump said.
WHAT TRUMP 2.0 WOULD REALLY MEAN FOR EUROPE: It would further galvanize the bloc’s populist parties and encourage their normalization, argues Ivo Daalder, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, in this opinion piece for POLITICO.
— U.N. General Assembly concludes in New York.
— Political Assembly of the European People’s Party in Brussels, chaired by EPP President Manfred Weber and EPP Secretary-General Thanasis Bakolas.
— Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders participates via videoconference in Korea’s Data Protection Day; participates in a conference hosted by the French Competition Authority.— Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides receives representatives of the health committee of the Danish Parliament; receives EU lawmaker Fidias Panayiotou.
— Former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi speaks at an event on competitiveness at the Bruegel think tank at 12:30 p.m. Watch.
— European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs holds discussion with ECB chief Christine Lagarde at 3 p.m. Watch.
— Western Balkans ministerial meeting on education and training, research and innovation and culture in Skopje, North Macedonia. European Economic and Social Committee President Oliver Röpke will participate and meet with Prime Minister of North Macedonia Hristijan Mickoski and Ambassador of the European Union to North Macedonia Michalis Rokas.
WEATHER: High of 16C, cloudy with periods of rain.
NEW JOB 1: António Costa, incoming president of the European Council, has tapped Maria Tomasik to serve as spokesperson, officially starting Oct. 15. She’s currently head of the press center at the Council.
NEW JOB 2: San Bilal has been appointed director of ECDPM, the think tank on international cooperation and foreign affairs with a focus on Africa. He replaces Carl Michiels, who is retiring.
NEW GOVERNMENT: Flanders has a new government — details here.
BIRTHDAYS: MEPs Radan Kanev, Younous Omarjee, Ivan Štefanec, Fernand Kartheiser Gerald Hauser; former MEP Iveta Grigule-Pēterse; Playbook’s own Catherine Bouris; The Washington Post’s David Herszenhorn; PSC’s Finnish Ambassador Juha Ottman.
THANKS TO: Playbook editor Alex Spence and producer Catherine Bouris.
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