Austrian Centrist Parties Reach Deal to Form Government Without Far Right

VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria's three top centrist parties in parliament have reached a deal to form a coalition government without the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) and plan to present it later on Thursday 27 February 2025, five months after the FPO won the last parliamentary election.

The deal should bring to a close the longest wait for a new government in Austria since World War Two. A first attempt to form a ruling coalition with the same three parties collapsed in January, after which the eurosceptic, Russia-friendly FPO was tasked with forming a government but also failed to.

The conservative People's Party (OVP), Social Democrats (SPO) and liberal Neos said they would publish their joint government programme at a news conference at 11:00 (CET).

The three-party government, Austria's first since the late 1940s, is due to take office next week, provided all parties sign off on the deal, the chief hurdle being a vote of Neos members on Sunday 2 March 2025, at which a two-thirds majority is required.

FPO leader Herbert Kickl has dismissed the tie-up as a "coalition of losers" and called for a snap election that opinion polls suggest would increase his party's share of the vote further from around 29% in September.

The coalition will be under pressure to deliver results including shrinking the budget deficit and avoid the kind of in-fighting that has felled previous governments.

"The first message this government has is 'We are not Herbert Kickl, we prevented Herbert Kickl [from becoming chancellor]'," political analyst Thomas Hofer said.

"That's something, but it isn't a forward-looking narrative," he said, adding they would likely need to produce more than the programme to survive the five-year parliament.

The FPO often likens the centrist effort to the three-party coalition in neighbouring Germany that recently collapsed.