Freedom Party leader Joerg Haider stands poised to take part in Austria's new government 445K/43 sec. AIFF or WAV sound

February 3, 2000
Web posted at: 4:59 p.m. EST (2159 GMT)

VIENNA, Austria (CNN) -- Austria's 14 European Union partners will freeze bilaterial ties with it on Friday, once the nation's new coalition government, which includes Joerg Haider's far-right party, is sworn in, Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres said.

Speaking at a news conference, Guterres, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU, said Austria's partners had no option but to carry out its intentions, after President Thomas Klestil on Thursday approved the coalition government.

It will be comprised of Haider's Freedom Party and the center-right People's Party, and will be the first time since World War II that a far-right party has held any European government ministry.

"As from tomorrow, the measures agreed by the 14 countries will take effect," Guterres said. "As long as this situation remains, we shall maintain this stance."

The EU, and many inside Austria itself, hold strong objections to the Freedom Party's far-right stances on several issues.

Klestil met Thursday with Haider and the People's Party's Wolfgang Schuessel before announcing his decision. The president had been expected to make a decision on Wednesday, but delayed the announcement until Thursday while he reviewed the proposal.

Before Klestil's announcement, Schuessel and Haider signed a declaration called "Responsibility for Austria -- A Future in the Heart of Europe" in an attempt to soothe international fears about the coalition.

The two parties renounced Austria's Nazi past in the document, declaring the new government would "ensure unreserved clarification, exposure of the structures of injustice, and the transmission of this knowledge to coming generations as a warning for the future."

"Our country is facing up to the light and dark sides of its past and to the deeds of all Austrians, good and evil, as its responsibility," the declaration said.

"Nationalism, dictatorship and intolerance brought war, xenophobia, bondage, racism and mass murder. The singularity of the crimes of the Holocaust which are without precedent in history are an exhortation to permanent alertness against all forms of dictatorship and totalitarianism."

The European Parliament was not impressed with the declaration, instead approving a resolution urging the EU to be ready to suspend Austria's EU membership if it made a "serious and persistent" breach of basic EU principles.

The 14 EU nations agreed Monday to politically isolate Austria if the new government were installed. Guterres said the sanctions were meant as a matter of principle to uphold common European values of racial tolerance and democracy.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said he would recall Ambassador Nathan Merom once the new government was formally approved.

At a news conference following their meeting, Haider said that he, Schuessel and Klestil discussed the new coalition's "clear commitment to the building up of democracy in Austria."

"The main thing is that we increase direct democracy," Haider said, " ... so that citizens have more influence over what happens in our republic. That is a very positive sign."

People's Party leader Wolfgang Schuessel

Schuessel, who would become chancellor in the new government, and Haider began talks on a coalition last week after negotiations aimed at renewing the 13-year coalition between the People's Party and Chancellor Viktor Klima's Social Democrats collapsed.

The Social Democrats, with 65 seats, are the largest party in Austria's parliament. But with 52 seats each, the People's Party and the Freedom Party would control 104 of the parliament's 189 seats, a clear majority.

Haider would not hold a post in the new government.

During last October's election, Haider's party addressed fears that immigrants and an expanded EU would cost Austrians jobs. Surveys released after the vote showed many young working-class men abandoning the Social Democrats.

Others turned to the Freedom Party to protest what many Austrians considered the "cronyism" of the Social Democrat-People's Party coalition after so many years in power, according to the surveys.

Correspondent Alessio Vinci contributed to this report.

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