Wolfgang Schüssel | |
|---|---|
 Schüssel in 2024 | |
| Chancellor of Austria | |
| In office 4 February 2000 – 11 January 2007 | |
| President | Thomas Klestil Heinz Fischer |
| Vice-Chancellor | Susanne Riess-Passer Herbert Haupt Hubert Gorbach |
| Preceded by | Viktor Klima |
| Succeeded by | Alfred Gusenbauer |
| Vice-Chancellor of Austria | |
| In office 4 May 1995 – 4 February 2000 | |
| Chancellor | Franz Vranitzky Viktor Klima |
| Preceded by | Erhard Busek |
| Succeeded by | Susanne Riess-Passer |
| Minister of Foreign Affairs | |
| In office 4 May 1995 – 4 February 2000 | |
| Chancellor | Franz Vranitzky Viktor Klima |
| Preceded by | Alois Mock |
| Succeeded by | Benita Ferrero-Waldner |
| Minister of Economic Affairs | |
| In office 24 April 1989 – 4 May 1995 | |
| Chancellor | Franz Vranitzky |
| Preceded by | Robert Graf |
| Succeeded by | Johannes Ditz |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1945-06-07)7 June 1945 (age 80) |
| Political party | Austrian People's Party |
| Alma mater | University of Vienna |
Wolfgang Schüssel (German pronunciation:[ˈvɔlfɡaŋˈʃʏsl̩]; born 7 June 1945) is a retiredAustrian politician. He wasChancellor of Austria for two consecutive terms from February 2000 to January 2007. While being recognised as a rare example of an active reformer in contemporary Austrian politics, his governments were also highly controversial from the beginning, starting with the fact that he formed a coalition government withJörg Haider'sFreedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) on both occasions. In 2011, he retired from being an active member of parliament due to a multitude of charges of corruption against members of his governments.
Born inVienna, Schüssel attended that city'sSchottengymnasium, a well known Roman Catholicgymnasium for boys, where he took hisMatura exams in 1963. He went on to study at theUniversity of Vienna, receiving a doctorate in law in 1968.
Schüssel was secretary of the parliamentary group of the Austrian People's Party from 1968 to 1975. From 1975 to 1991, he was secretary general of theAustrian Business Federation, a sub-organization of the Austrian People's Party.
He becameMinister for Economic Affairs on 24 April 1989 in a coalition government under ChancellorFranz Vranitzky (SPÖ) formed by theSocial Democratic Party (SPÖ) and theAustrian People's Party (ÖVP).
On 22 April 1995, at the 30th Party Congress of the ÖVP, Schüssel staged a leadership coup and oustedErhard Busek as chairman of the Austrian People's Party. He also replaced the party's ministers in the governing coalition.[1]
On 4 May 1995, Schüssel replaced Busek as vice-chancellor in Franz Vranitzky's fourth government, and also took over as Minister for Foreign Affairs. He held the same posts in Chancellor Vranitzky's fifth Cabinet, as well as the first cabinet of ChancellorViktor Klima's (SPÖ).
In the1999 election, Schüssel's ÖVP finished third, trailingJörg Haider's Freedom Party (FPÖ) by 415 votes. After a series of talks to renew the grand coalition with the SPÖ failed, Schüssel sought a coalition with the Freedom Party.
Jörg Haider, as leader of the larger party, would typically have been the presumptive chancellor, with Schüssel remaining vice chancellor. However, it was apparent that Haider was too controversial to serve in the government, let alone lead it. The FPÖ thus agreed to support Schüssel as chancellor, and Haider did not join the cabinet. Schüssel was sworn in on 4 February 2000, with Haider's successor as FPÖ leader,Susanne Riess-Passer, as vice chancellor. His government was the first in 30 years not to be led by the SPÖ.
Schüssel's government was immediately highly controversial due to the inclusion of the Freedom Party. Schüssel was perceived as having breached the long-standingcordon sanitaire againstright-wing populist parties in Europe. This and the association of Haider with the government sparked widespread criticism both domestically and internationally.The Guardian reported that, during the decisive days of Schüssel's negotiations, caretaker Chancellor Viktor Klima had "urged fellow EU leaders to help influence the coalition bargaining."[2]
The ÖVP had been a member of every government from 1945 to 1970 and from 1986 onwards, but even in opposition had never been completely excluded from power. The post-war tradition of consensus-building meant that representatives of all major interest groups in the country were to be consulted before any policy was enacted. Schüssel, however, broke with that tradition in order to rapidly implement the reforms he felt necessary. This was received poorly by many Austrians, who considered the consensus-building approach to be an unwritten part of the constitution. Between 2000 and 2002, there were weekly protests throughoutVienna against the government, dubbed theDonnerstagsdemonstrationen (Thursday demonstrations).
The Schüssel government was received poorly by governments internationally, including those of the fourteen otherEuropean Union member states, due to its cooperation with the FPÖ. An initiative was organised, with encouragement from much of the Austrianleft-wing, to express international disapproval. Because nothing in the legal framework of the European Union enabled official action to be taken, informal "sanctions" were imposed – for several months, many other national leaders engaged in social and diplomaticostracism of the Schüssel government, refusing any unnecessary interaction. Participants included French PresidentJacques Chirac, German ChancellorGerhard Schröder, and leading Belgian politicians. Government supporters frequently blamed the SPÖ and PresidentThomas Klestil for this campaign, accusing them of disloyalty to Austria.
After several months without any change in the situation, a delegation of high-ranking EU diplomats – Martti Ahtisaari,Marcelino Oreja andJochen Frowein – was sent to Austria to examine the political situation and determine whether the so-called "sanctions" could be lifted. Their report did not find conditions that would permit EU members to institute any official measures under EU law, but did present proposals for how EU law could be modified to resolve such a situation in the future. These proposals were incorporated in theTreaty of Nice, ratified in 2001. Following the report, EU leaders quietly "lifted" the sanctions and returned to normality during the summer of 2000, despite the situation in Austria remaining unchanged.
.jpg)
By the summer of 2002, a series of setbacks in local and regional elections had resulted in considerable internal strife in the FPÖ. When the leading figures of the more pragmatic wing of the party, Vice-ChancellorSusanne Riess-Passer and Finance MinisterKarl-Heinz Grasser, announced their resignations, Schüssel calledearly elections. The ÖVP recorded its best result since 1983, winning 42.3% of votes cast and overtaking the SPÖ for the first time since 1966. After negotiating with both the SPÖ andThe Greens, Schüssel decided to renew the coalition with the FPÖ, which had won just 10% of votes. On 28 February 2003, Schüssel was sworn in as Chancellor for a second time.[3]
In April 2005, the FPÖ effectively split into two parties. The bulk of the party, including Haider, the FPÖ cabinet ministers, and most of the FPÖ parliamentary caucus, formed theAlliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ), while most party members andstate branches remained with the old party. Despite this change, Schüssel continued the coalition, which served out the remainder of the legislative term.
In the2006 legislative election, the ÖVP lost many of the voters it had won over in 2002 and fell back to second place against the SPÖ. In addition, the BZÖ won just 7 seats, leaving the outgoing government well short of a majority. While a three-party coalition with both the FPÖ and BZÖ would reach a slim majority, Schüssel stated after the election that a coalition with either party "would not be reasonable". The SPÖ and ÖVP began the process of negotiating a grand coalition. Schüssel served as caretaker Chancellor until the new government was sworn in on 11 January 2007; he also served briefly as acting Minister of the Interior following the death ofLiese Prokop on 31 December 2006.[4]
Austria succeeded the United Kingdom as holder of the Presidency of theEuropean Council on 1 January 2006. In the presence of German ChancellorAngela Merkel, Schüssel promised to lead the European Union "hand in hand" with Germany, and Merkel promised that Germany would do everything to "help" Austria during its presidency and make it a success. Schüssel also stated that Austria needed "some friends of the presidency". This led to Brussels diplomats describing the Austrian presidency as "the small German presidency", according to French newspaperLe Figaro.
Following the2006 election, Schüssel became chairman of the ÖVP Parliamentary Group. He announced after theSeptember 2008 election that he would continue to sit in parliament only as a backbencher;Josef Pröll was to replace him as chairman of the ÖVP Parliamentary Group. In addition to his parliamentary work, Schüssel served on the Commission of Eminent Persons on The Role of theIAEA to 2020 and Beyond, chaired byErnesto Zedillo, whose reportReinforcing the Global Nuclear Order for Peace and Prosperity was launched in June 2008.
In 2011, Schüssel retired from parliament due to massive charges of corruption against members of the governments led by him originating from theTelekom Austria Affair.[5]
| Part ofa series on |
| Conservatism in Austria |
|---|
 |
Literature
|
The government's attempts at achieving a balanced budget (called "Nulldefizit") – while being more successful than most of its contemporary initiatives abroad – failed. Changes involved a mixture of raising taxes and fees on the one hand and cost-cutting measures on the other, which proved highly visible and prompted significant criticism. For example, the Austrian education system suffered considerably, as shown by thePISA study released in 2004: many salaries and expensive projects were cut at universities, even though the government proclaimed it would bring teaching and research to a "world-class" level. Cost-cutting in the security sector was blamed for an increase in crime.
At the same time, Schüssel's government increased public spending in certain areas. For example, the new "Kindergeld" (child benefit) to help families replaced the old "Karenzgeld", which was dependent on the recipient being employed. This change was a nod to the Freedom Party, which had campaigned for this measure.
The decision to replace the oldDrakenfighter planes of the Bundesheer with 18Eurofighters (originally 24 were ordered, this number was reduced after the 2002 floods) was seen as waste of money by the opposition, most of all because of the attempts to save money in almost every area of the public administration. The government's arguments for this were that theAustrian State Treaty, according to which Austria needs to be able to defend herself, is to be read to imply that Austria must be in complete control of her airspace. The opposition argued that this goal could have been reached in a much cheaper way.
Starting from around 2030, the unfavourable structure of thepopulation pyramid had been forecast to create a ratio of active to retired workers of 1:1. Schüssel's pension reform made provision for this in the reduction of future pensions and raising of theretirement age. Schüssel's reform of the Austrian pension system is more broad-sweeping and thus more likely to be effective than all previous reforms in this area combined. Demographics experts insisted that it ideally should have gone further,[citation needed] whereas the SPÖ and the Austrian Federation of Trade Unions (ÖGB) protested heavily and argued that the pension losses, limited by Schüssel to 10% and later reduced to 5%, were excessive.[citation needed] Such measures laid the groundwork for later military reform and pension reform.Mandatory military service to reduce to six months or even its abolition. From 2005 onwards,corporate tax was cut to 25% to stimulate investment and economic growth. This was an example of harmonisation toward neighbouring taxes as recent EU and Schengen area memberSlovakia had consistently lower tax rates. However, critics argued that such a tax advantage for firms was unfair to many sole traders.
Since his retirement from Austrian politics, Schüssel has held paid and unpaid positions, including the following:
When theEuropean People's Party (EPP) membership of Hungarian partyFidesz was suspended in 2019, EPP presidentJoseph Daul appointed Schüssel – alongsideHerman van Rompuy andHans-Gert Pöttering – to a group of high-level experts who were mandated to monitor Fidesz's compliance with EPP values.[20][21]
Media related toWolfgang Schüssel at Wikimedia Commons| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Minister of Economic Affairs 1989–1995 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Vice-Chancellor of Austria 1995–2000 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of Foreign Affairs 1995–2000 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chancellor of Austria 2000–2007 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | President of the European Council 2006 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Chair of the People's Party 1995–2007 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
