From: Hugh Martin, Wed, 31 May 2000.
On Monday Martin D. Brown from Central Europe Review posted an excerpt from "One Hundred Days of Solitude" and invited Forum members to comment. We hope this sort of collaborative discussion will become a weekly event for the Blue Ear Forum and CER.
"One Hundred Days of Solitude" is a CER feature which looks at the first one hundred days of the ÖVP-FPÖ coalition in Austria. I found I had many questions after reading the piece, and most of them were a result of my unfamiliarity with the political landscape.
Australia's media gaze is too firmly fixed on British politics, with an occasional nod towards national issues of interest to any of our immigrant communities. Unfortunately Austria doesn't normally feature. We saw some of the protest over Jörg Haider's leadership after the partnership agreement was reached, but we didn't quite understand the implications - it was simply a right wing coalition. We saw the anti-government demonstration in mid-February, but that was presented as an isolated event. We heard about the sanctions, but not of their effects.
Magali Perrault's article has made me curious about the impact of this new government in terms of the region, aside from the fact of the sanctions. Perrault mentions that the coalition appears to be supporting Hungary's case for EU membership. What are the pros and cons of this? Who wants what? What does Austria's status as a country under sanction mean to any sponsorship of Hungary's entry to the EU? What is the state of the debate of EU expansion? What is the extent of Austria's influence in Brussels?
Perrault says:
... the future of Austrian attitude towards enlargement could indeed largely be decided in the corridors of Brussels if the Austrian government decides to counter the sanctions by blocking EU reforms. Yet, at the same time, talk of a new Brezhnev doctrine have been heard in certain Central European capitals and "small" Austria, who has been traditionally regarded with distrust and suspicion by some of its neighbours (with the partial exception of Hungary), has secured an undeniable amount of sympathy because of what has been perceived as its unfair treatment in the hands of its bigger and more powerful EU partners. ...
There is an enormous weight in the first sentence of this quoted paragraph. I'd love to know some more the background to this.
Regards,
Hugh Martin (Deputy Moderator)
From: Ethan Casey, Wed, 31 May 2000.
Bo Melander writes:
On Austria - I find it extremely unrealistic that Vienna could block any EU decisions if they are alone in the protest. Money talks. Austria is in no position to do more than barking. Of course she can leave the EU, but I find that rather unrealistic too. In a year or so, however, we might see that EU members stop demonstrating against Vienna, as they find it counter-productive to indirectly help Haider's showboat.
And Hugh Martin wrote:
Magali Perrault's article has made me curious about the impact of this new government in terms of the region, aside from the fact of the sanctions. Perrault mentions that the coalition appears to be supporting Hungary's case for EU membership. What are the pros and cons of this? Who wants what? What does Austria's status as a country under sanction mean to any sponsorship of Hungary's entry to the EU? What is the state of the debate of EU expansion? What is the extent of Austria's influence in Brussels?
Hugh also cites the author of the Central Europe Review article on Austria's new government so far, "One Hundred Days of Solitude," Magali Perrault, as writing:
Yet, at the same time, talk of a new Brezhnev doctrine have been heard in certain Central European capitals and 'small' Austria, who has been traditionally regarded with distrust and suspicion by some of its neighbours (with the partial exception of Hungary), has secured an undeniable amount of sympathy because of what has been perceived as its unfair treatment in the hands of its bigger and more powerful EU partners. ...
In a phone conversation a few days ago, CER senior editor Martin D Brown pointed out to me that a related point also is significant: that EU member states have imposed sanctions against a fellow EU member on the basis of human rights concerns. This, Martin said (I hope I'm paraphrasing him adequately), is having the accidental but welcome effect of signaling to central European candidates for EU membership that they're not being discriminated against - that "even" an existing EU member can be vulnerable to sanctions on the basis of human rights concerns.
I'd like to hear more about this, and about where various candidate countries stand in terms of if and when they'll be invited to join the EU. Are there other recent CER articles that address this? And, like Hugh, I find interesting the question of how the present situation and the sanctions against Austria might affect Hungary's application in particular.
Best regards,
Ethan.
From: Bo Melander, Wed, 31 May 2000
On the European mess:
Not only Hungary, but also the Czech Republic and Poland and I suppose some other countries in the East of Europe that want to belong to the EU, have by nature a lot of nationalism built up after all the years under Soviet rule. They may listen to Haider with other ears than most still do in western Europe. According to William Pfaff, American diplomats are even using this situation to say to these countries that they might have to choose between the EU and the USA. And very much so if Europe is breaking its ties with the USA on security and defence.
If the hard reaction from EU members (not the EU itself) towards Austria's government is meant as a warning to new members on humanitarian grounds, they should ask the USA for support, if they fear that the nationalism in the east is too black or brown. And they might be able to do that if they still will belong to NATO, of which they all are currently members. The balance between the democratic right and the democratic left in the EU parliament is close to 50-50. Of course the left is scared to see that balance move more to the right with new members. And they hope to see parties like their own in the incoming countries, so they have "control".
I think it's rather foolish to call this situation Brezhnev-like. Even in a democracy, you can draw lines against undemocratic and racist parties. But even in democratic Sweden, a country with poor nationalism and a lot of internationalism since the war, 50 per cent of the population or more is not very eager to be members of the EU, and a majority are against Euroland, as in Britain and Denmark. The main concern is that the present structure of the EU is too centralised and too undemocratic. And there is a feeling that big business has the upper hand, out of democratic control.
That is the problem for the Labour government here. And neutral Sweden is totally against a superstate in Europe. At the same time Sweden, like Britain, is pushing for the incoming members, so they can enter the EU sooner rather than later. The idea here is that their membership will support democratic development in these countries and might hinder the EU from becoming a superstate.
And there is a clear wish that the smaller members not lose their say. France wants more power in the EU; Germany wants more power; Britain will be heard as a great nation, and so will all the others. Self-interest is the cornerstone of the EU, even when corporations and interdependence increase. The European classroom is in a wonderful mess after all those years under Russian and American rule. And the teachers are as many as the pupils, for they are the same persons. As in the Balkans, history is lurking with geopolitics and nationalism. But William Pfaff might be right.
The euro is here, a lot of laws are now common for the whole EU, markets are opening up, state capitalism is breaking down, and soon there will be the embryo of an independent European military force. From that perspective the small countries are wild cards in the European theatre, as well as within themselves. When France and Germany now will create a kind of government for Euroland, they will formulate the rules. Then it will be up to others to accept the terms or to stay out in the cold, with different levels of bilateral agreements with Euroland. If they want to be full members and play by the rules, they know that they will have to adopt the language of Brussels, Paris, and Berlin.
From my point of view up here in the North, I see how the core in the EU is scared of new members. But not in political terms only. They are scared of the costs in the short term. And they are scared of a popular reaction in their own countries when borders open up to the east. So they want to create new but old borders inside the enlarged EU. But there is no great plan yet how to do it, and the questions on all sides are more than the answers. Perhaps some years of economic growth now will help to ease the political tensions in Europe, and that might influence the process.
Still, the main actors are rather introverted, and I do not believe France will put forward revolutionary changes in the present course of the EU. But some new obstacles for the newcomers will certainly show up. If you read the story by William Pfaff, a veteran correspondent in Paris for major US dailies, you can feel how the mirror to history is not broken yet.
Yours,
Bo B Melander.
From: Dorothy Mills, Thu, 1 Jun 2000.
CER's article speculates that Austria's isolation might be ending.
Maybe that's because Austria is not as alone in its stance against heavy immigration as many of us have believed. CER now reports that the Czechs are reacting against immigrants, and the New York Times tells us that even the Swiss are beginning to think of immigration as a problem.
Since it was the concern over immigration into Austria that fueled Haider's movement, will the EU give these two countries the cold shoulder, too?
Dorothy Mills
From: Blake Lambert, Fri, 02 Jun 2000
Dorothy Mills writes:
Since it was the concern over immigration into Austria that fueled Haider's movement, will the EU give these two countries the cold shoulder, too?
While there may be similar backlashes towards immigrants in Switzerland, the country may be/should be subject to somewhat different rules than Austria. It's not a member of the EU; Austria is. If I'm correct, Austria is one of the last "westernized" countries to join the EU along with Greece. (I think it was admitted in 1993 or 1994.) So what punishment could the EU take against Switzerland?
(There's also a larger argument that the Austrians have to still reconcile their WW2 history.)
As for the Czech Republic, I think it started toughening its visa laws as of Jan 1, 2000. I also heard the authorities wanted foreigners to provide a lot of personal information to acquire a business visa. What that means in a larger context of immigrants and refugees, I'm not sure. But the EU might have a greater say in the Czech Republic's affairs, because the country is striving for admittance into the organization and might be more prepared to stay on the good side of the EU's senior members.
In the meantime, what has the EU done to curb anti-immigrant political movements in places like Sweden and Denmark?
What should it do?
Blake Lambert
From: Magali Perrault, Fri, 2 Jun 2000
Dear Blake and dear Dorothy,
That is indeed an interesting issue.
The EU member states which have introduced bilateral political sanctions against Austria have argued that since the EU is a community of values (which Austria joined in January 1995), there should be some form of special "responsibility for each other" (or something along these lines...). This would legitimate intervention against Austria, but not against Switzerland (or Putin's Russia...). This was symbolically expressed in March during the EU summit in Lisbon when the traditional "family photo" was renamed by the protocole a "group photo" (because the Austrian chancellor was in it). The move was obviously designed to emphasise the idea that Austria (according to its EU partners) had lost its claim to be part of the "family" (a closer tight nucleus than a "group").
At the same time however , many Austrians wonder why the EU did not intervene when the post-fascist Alleanza Nazionale was briefly included in the Italian government in 1994 or when the Italian and the French governments include former more or less reformed hard-line Communists...
There is also quite a lot of domestic politics involved here- especially since the two countries which have taken a very hard line against the new Austrian coalition, France and Belgium, both have to reckon with significant far-right movements...
Magali
From: Maximilian Hartmuth, Fri, 2 Jun 2000
Dorothy Mills writes:
Since it was the concern over immigration into Austria that fueled Haider's movement, will the EU give these two countries the cold shoulder, too?
I think the problem here is the lack of a clear definition of what "traditional European values" are (as often argued by other EU-members, those "traditional European values" have been violated by inclusion of the FPÖ into a government).
I basically agree with this, that right-wing-populist forces should have no space in the EU, but how to argue this? You can't censor someone by saying "you violate traditional European values, defined by us, so we don't allow you to take part in a government".
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Besides that, what are those often cited values? Does Europe really have a tradition of tolerance?
Best regards,
Maximilian Hartmuth, Vienna.
From: Maximilian Hartmuth, Fri, 2 Jun 2000
Dorothy Mills wrote:
Haider did resign- but only as head of his party, not as governor of Carinthia (Karnten) province, which is traditionally extremely conservative.
I really wouldn't say Carinthia is "traditionally extremely conservative". After WW2 it was a long-time stronghold of the socialist party. Only in the last 20 years has Haider's FPÖ got stronger, and finally got 41% in 1999.
In fact, the "conservatives" (ÖVP) are rather weak in Carinthia. I think they got 16% in 1999.
What you might mean, is that Carinthia has a deutschnational tradition (I don't know the equivalent in English, if there is one), ie. that Carinthians felt more attracted to being "German" than accepting an "Austrian nation".
Carinthians are traditionally very distrustful of their Slavic neighbors (since WW2), because the fear that Yugoslavia could want to annex the southern part of Carinthia (like they tried in 1945 (?) ), was always present. (Explanation: In the southern part of Carinthia there is a Slovenian-speaking minority that chose (by plebiscite) to remain with Austria, rather than to join the then newly formed Yugoslavia in 1920. Yugoslav partisans tried to annex parts of Carinthia and Styria post-WW2, but the Carinthians finally defeated them in the Abwehrkampf)
Best Regards,
Maximilian Hartmuth, Vienna.
From:Dorothy Mills, Sat, 3 Jun 2000
Thank you, Maximilian Hartmuth, for clarifying Carinthia's position. What I read elsewhere about this province was obviously too vague and off-base.
When I said "traditionally" I was thinking not of the era since World War 2 but back in the thirties, when Hitler was on the verge of sending his army over the border. At that time (I see, from checking my notes) it wasn't Carinthia (Karnten) that was so strongly enthusiastic about a German takeover but Styria (Steiermark). The Styrian Nazis, said the New York Times that month, were illegally giving the Hitler salute, wearing swastikas, and marching in pro-Hitler parades in early March -before the Anschluss of the 18th. Seyss-Inquart rushed to Graz to address and support them.
Does pro-German sentiment continue in this area, more so than elsewhere?
I was startled to read, in the Times a week or two ago, a comment by a member of the current Austrian government that "After all, we are Germans." In my view, it's this kind of misplaced loyalty- a sort of reverse patriotism-that got them into trouble.
The Austrian aristocrats I interviewed in and around Salzburg when I was preparing my historical novel, The Sceptre, were at pains to tell me how anti-Nazi they and their friends were in the thirties. I believe they were patriotic Austrians. But I'm sure they also had in mind (as some of them admitted) the possibility of bringing back the Habsburg monarchy to help repulse Hitler. They were monarchists, and the restoration of a monarchy at might have helped restore some of their own influence. What do you think of this view?
Dorothy Mills
From: Maximilian Hartmuth, Sat, 3 Jun 2000
Dear Dorothy,
At that time (I see, from checking my notes) it wasn't Carinthia (Karnten) that was so strongly enthusiastic about a German takeover but Styria (Steiermark).
I must admit, I don`t know if the Styrians were more enthusiastic about a German takeover. The Austrian province that was least enthusiastic must have been Tyrol. (In some Tyrolean valley(s) there was even armed resistance, but it was quickly overthrown, and is also very little known.) Most probably also Vorarlberg. The people there always felt more close to Switzerland than to Germany and Austria. But it's true that the Anschluss was welcomed by the Carinthians.
Generally one could say, support for Hitler was less in traditionally religious areas (as Tyrol), because Hitler's ideology opposed the strong role Catholicism played in their lives.
Does pro-German sentiment continue in this area, more so than elsewhere?
If there would be Austrians identifying themselves as Austrians they would probably live in Carinthia.
No, I wouldn`t dare to say that with absolute certainty. (We Viennese have a rather strange impression of Carinthians.) For instance, Franz Fuchs, the mail-bomb assassin, was also very deutschnational (sorry, no English equivalent), and he was from Upper Austria. Maybe Upper Austria was also rather enthusiastic. Hitler was born there, and there is still some small-scale underground right-wing activism going on there.
But I think feeling German for Austrians has become rather seldom. A curiosity and small-scale scandal was that Haider said in 1986: "Carinthia will only be a content country, when it's a German country"... but I wouldn't give that expression too much attention. Haider and his FPÖ stopped "feeling German" in the nineties. There was initially a deutschnational-wing in the FPO, but its meaning has become marginally, and has died out in the public identity of the FPÖ.
But I really wouldn't say this is "right-wing" (feeling German for an Austrian), as I also wouldn't generally demonize a desire for a new Anschluss as being right-wing.
I was startled to read, in The Times a week or two ago, a comment by a member of the current Austrian government that "After all, we are Germans."
That really surprises me. Is there a possibility that you could look up the name?
But, I don't really think a member of the Austrian government would say this, it would have surely become a scandal here.
I believe they were patriotic Austrians. But I'm sure they also had in mind (as some of them admitted) the possibility of bringing back the Habsburg monarchy to help repulse Hitler.They were monarchists, and the restoration of a monarchy at might have helped restore some of their own influence. What do you think ofthis view?
Hm, I don't know what to say. I don't think that this choice was that popular in the 1940s (bringing back the monarchy), but for those people you interviewed, as you wrote yourself, the main motivation might have been the restoration of their own influence. Maybe you could specify your question.
I'd like to add that I'm no professional historian, so maybe some of my suppositions here are false. (I hope not, but I can't tell with absolute certainty.)
Best Wishes,
Maximilian
From: Bo B Melander, Sun, 04 Jun 2000
Hi Maximilian,
I just want to add that my experiences in Vienna in the 1970s, when covering the anti-nuclear movement in Austria, which in many ways was dominated by upper-class folks, the Habsburg era was very much alive in their minds. I was told that Hitler was a popular figure, as he was an Austrian with a popular message fighting communism and Jews in the same stroke. But in parts of the intellectual Austria they saw him as underclass and primitive, a kind of dirty Napoleon figure without education.
As in the rest of Europe, many liberals before the war liked Mussolini more. And I think the neo-Mussolini-ism in parts of Europe today could be looked into from that perspective. The most famous newspaper editor during the war in Sweden, the head of Gothenburg's Trade & Shipping Daily (Go öteborgs Handels- och Sjo öfarts-Tidning), Torgny Segerstedt, an anti-Nazi who used his paper to fight Hitler's gang and upset Berlin so much that the Swedish government censored his editorials during many war years, was rather open to Mussolini at the beginning of the 1930s.
As he was an upper-class intellectual I find it hard to understand why, but then I have heard that a lot of liberals around Europe accepted Mussolini for a while. Is it because of that that neo-fascism in civilian clothes is on the rise in parts of Europe? But I must add that the liberals had second thoughts after a while. One view on Mussolini I heard in Rome once was that he was such a political chameleon in the beginning that it was hard to map him until he chose to become a Caesar.
Yours
Bo B Melander
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