Germany, Austria Barely Break Ice

Evincing all the enthusiasm of a patient at the dentist’s, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder paid a call on his governing colleagues in Austria on Saturday and maintained the same diplomatic chill the Alpine nation has been subjected to since it brought far-right politicians into power last year.

Schroeder spent so little time with Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, in fact, that conservatives in both countries called the official visit an insult. They said it amounted to an attempt at reimposing the diplomatic sanctions against Austria dropped by the European Union in September.

The visit was Schroeder’s first to Austria since its 14 EU colleagues began showing Vienna a cold shoulder in February 2000, after the far-right Freedom Party, then headed by nationalist Joerg Haider, was admitted to the governing coalition with Schuessel’s conservative Austrian People’s Party.

Because Haider had made flattering comments about the Nazi regime and had fanned anti-foreigner sentiments, the EU nations slapped sanctions against their fellow member to punish its undemocratic leanings. It lifted them seven months later after concluding that they had been “counterproductive.”

Schroeder, who was one of the most ardent supporters of Austrian isolation, made clear during his visit that Berlin harbors no regret.

“I do not see them as a mistake. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have supported them in the first place,” Schroeder said of the sanctions when asked about them at a news conference with Schuessel.

The Austrian chancellor sought to ignore what others in his political party and the party of his coalition partners saw as a slight by Schroeder, but Schuessel did hint at the continuing coolness between the neighboring nations.

“Today was a beginning,” Schuessel said cryptically of the two countries’ need to work out a common approach to shared challenges, such as the impending EU expansion to include Eastern European countries, which could draw millions of migrant workers into their front-line nations.

Schuessel made the point, though, that Schroeder and other EU leaders have to deal with the parties in power in Vienna whether they like them or not.

“There’s only one representative of the federal government of Austria, and that’s me,” he observed.

Political commentators and conservatives in both countries were more candid.

“The sanctions policy is now being continued by other means,” Andreas Khol, the parliamentary leader of Schuessel’s party, complained to the daily Kronenzeitung, describing Schroeder’s visit as “undiplomatic and hurtful.”

Asked if he agreed that Schroeder’s schedule was insulting to his government, Schuessel replied: “I’ll let others be the judge of that.”

Schroeder was met at the Vienna airport Friday night by Alfred Gusenbauer, head of the Austrian Social Democrats. The chancellor spent the evening at a social affair arranged by the sister party to his own Social Democrats of Germany and likewise lingered at a Saturday afternoon gathering with artists and intellectuals critical of the parties in power.

In contrast, the morning meeting between Schroeder and Schuessel lasted less than an hour, during which they discussed the challenges they will face if workers from Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary are immediately able to take jobs in other EU states once the alliance is expanded to include them. Threats of a major influx and more pressure on an already stretched social spending budget have been Haider’s most effective tools in stirring anti-immigrant sentiments.

Schroeder refused to meet with anyone from the Freedom Party, which is no longer headed by Haider but is still strongly influenced by the charismatic rightist.

German conservatives were as critical as the Austrians of the time Schroeder spent with the opposition.

“Against all the rules of good neighborliness, Chancellor Schroeder is snubbing the Austrian government with the arrangement of his visit,” said Peter Hintze, European policy chief for Germany’s Christian Democrats.

The daily Die Welt termed the visit “Schroeder’s Affront” and said that even East German Communists during the Cold War never executed the kind of diplomatic snub made by Schroeder against a democratically elected government.