Crypto News: Austria jolts Europe’s mainstream

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With all that's been going on in the world lately, it's easy to forget Austria.

Vienna has other ideas, and all Europe is now looking on.

Political leaders in Austria have been plugging away at forming a government since September elections that were won by the anti-immigration, pro-Russia Freedom Party.

Lacking a majority, the Freedom Party led by Herbert Kickl was shut out by other groups that attempted to forge a centrist coalition. Those efforts collapsed this weekend, prompting the resignation of conservative Chancellor Karl Nehammer.

Kickl is next in line to try. Assuming he can form a government — and the signs are positive with the conservatives now ready to back him — he is poised to become Austria's first far-right chancellor since World War II.

That would give him a say in European Union decision-making in fields relating to Ukraine's defense against Russia's invasion, and on migration and climate policy.

But Austria also offers a potential precedent for other countries that have adopted similar measures to keep the far right from power.

In France, parliament is gridlocked after voters split three ways in large part to hinder Marine Le Pen's National Rally.

The most pertinent example though is Germany, where the nationalist AfD party is polling in second place to the center-right conservative bloc ahead of a Feb. 23 snap election.

German AfD Co-leader Alice Weidel speaks during a Bloomberg TV interview in Berlin, on Dec. 18. Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg

The AfD, which is in an even more extreme European grouping than the Freedom Party, has little chance of entering government at regional or national level since it is shunned by Germany's other parties.

It's a policy that has done nothing to blunt its rise, if anything fostering its insurgent appeal among disaffected voters, especially in the former communist eastern regions.

The firewall has already crumbled in onetime liberal bastions the Netherlands and Sweden. How tenable it remains in Germany should become clearer next month.

If Austria is any measure, the answer may be uncomfortable. — Alan Crawford

WATCH: Kickl is on track to become the Freedom Party's first chancellor. Oliver Crook reports on Bloomberg TV.

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