Austria’s conservative People’s Party has agreed to form a governing coalition with the far-right Freedom Party, two months after a parliamentary election.
Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen said he’d been assured the new government would be pro-European.
A previous coalition between chancellor Christian Kern’s Social Democrats and the People’s party collapsed in May, which resulted in a snap election.
The People’s Party’s foreign minister, Sebastian Kurz, becomes the country’s new chancellor, and Heinz-Christian Strache, the head of the Freedom Party, his deputy.
Austria is now the only western European state with a far-right presence in government.
Kurz’s party will run ministries including finance, justice and agriculture, a conservative spokesman said. The Freedom Party will control the foreign, interior and defence ministries.
Van der Bellen said: “In these talks among other things we agreed it is in the national interest of Austria to remain at the centre of a strong European Union and to actively participate in the future development of the European Union.”
It is not the first time the Freedom party has been in government. It was part of a coalition government between 2000 and 2005.
EU leaders did not support it at the time and bilateral diplomatic relations were frozen in protest.
However, the response is likely to be more muted this time, as an increased support for other right-wing parties across Europe has risen.
