An unofficial successor to theChristian Social Party of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the ÖVP was founded immediately following the re-establishment of theRepublic of Austria in 1945. Since then, it has been one of the two traditional major parties in Austria, alongside theSocial Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ). It was the most popular party until 1970, and has traditionally governed in agrand coalition with the SPÖ. It was the senior partner in grand coalitions from 1945 to 1966 and the junior partner from 1986 to 2000 and 2007–2017. The ÖVP also briefly governed alone from 1966 to 1970. After the1999 election, the party formed acoalition with theFreedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) until 2003, when acoalition with the FPÖ splinterAlliance for the Future of Austria was formed, which lasted until 2007.
The ÖVP is the successor of theChristian Social Party, a staunchly conservative movement founded in 1893 byKarl Lueger, mayor ofVienna and highly controversialright-wing populist. Most of the members of the party during its founding belonged to the formerFatherland Front, which was led by chancellorEngelbert Dollfuss, also a member of the Christian Social Party before theAnschluss. While still sometimes honored by ÖVP members for resistingAdolf Hitler, the regime built by Dollfuss was authoritarian in nature and has been dubbed asAustrofascism. In its present form, the ÖVP was established immediately after the restoration of Austria's independence in 1945 and it has been represented in both theFederal Assembly ever since. In terms of Federal Assembly seats, the ÖVP has consistently been the strongest or second-strongest party and as such it has led or at least been a partner in most Austria's federal cabinets.
Party membership of ÖVP (in turquoise), since 1945.
In the1945 Austrian legislative election, the ÖVP won alandslide victory in Austria's first postwar election, winning almost half the popular vote and an absolute majority in the legislature. However, memories of the hyper-partisanship that had plagued the First Republic prompted the ÖVP to maintain thegrand coalition with theCommunist Party of Austria (KPÖ) and theSocial Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) that had governed the country since the restoration of independence in early 1945. The ÖVP remained the senior partner in a coalition with the SPÖ until 1966 and governed alone from 1966 to 1970. It reentered the government in 1986, but has never been completely out of power since the restoration of Austrian independence in 1945 due to a longstanding tradition that all major interest groups were to be consulted on policy.
After the1999 Austrian legislative election, several months of negotiations ended in early 2000 when the ÖVP formed acoalition government with the right-wing populistFreedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) led byJörg Haider. The FPÖ had won just a few hundred more votes than the ÖVP, but was considered far too controversial to lead a government. The ÖVP'sWolfgang Schüssel becameChancellor—the first ÖVP Chancellor of Austria since 1970. This caused widespread outrage in Europe and theEuropean Union imposed informal diplomatic sanctions on Austria, the first time that it imposed sanctions on a member state. Bilateral relations were frozen (including contacts and meetings at an inter-governmental level) and Austrian candidates would not be supported for posts in European Union international offices.[2] Austria threatened to veto all applications by countries for European Union membership until the sanctions were lifted.[3] A few months later, these sanctions were dropped as a result of a fact-finding mission by three former European prime ministers, the so-called "three wise men". The2002 legislative election resulted in a landslide victory (42.27% of the vote) for the ÖVP under Schüssel. Haider's FPÖ was reduced to 10.16% of the vote. At thestate level, the ÖVP has long dominated the rural states ofLower Austria,Upper Austria,Salzburg,Styria,Tyrol andVorarlberg. It is less popular in thecity-state ofVienna and in the rural, but less strongly Catholic states ofBurgenland andCarinthia. In 2004, it lost itsplurality in theState of Salzburg, where they kept its result in seats (14) in 2009. In 2005, it lost its plurality inStyria for the first time.
After theAlliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ) split from the FPÖ in 2005, the BZÖ replaced the FPÖ in the government coalition which lasted until 2007. Austria for the first time had a government containing a party that was founded during the parliamentary term. In the2006 Austrian legislative election, the ÖVP were defeated and after much negotiations agreed to become junior partner in a grand coalition with the SPÖ, with new party chairmanWilhelm Molterer asFinance Minister andVice-Chancellor under SPÖ leaderAlfred Gusenbauer, who became Chancellor. The2008 Austrian legislative election saw the ÖVP lose 15 seats, with a further 8.35% decrease in its share of the vote. However, the ÖVP won the largest share of the vote (30.0%) in the2009 European Parliament election with 846,709 votes, although their number of seats remained the same.
The ÖVP had minor losses in the2013 Austrian legislative election, and the grand coalition with the SPÖ continued until the2017 Austrian legislative election, when the ÖVP changed its colour to turquoise and won its first legislative election since 2002. The party underwent a change in its image afterSebastian Kurz became chairman, changing its colour from the traditional black to turquoise, and adopting the alternate nameThe New People's Party (German:Die neue Volkspartei).[4] It became the largest party after the2017 election, and formed acoalition government with the FPÖ.[5] This collapsed eighteen months later due to theIbiza affair, leading to the2019 election, after which the ÖVP formed anew coalition withThe Greens.[6]
An investigation into the Ibiza affair by a parliamentary subcommittee, an unstable Cabinet plagued by resignations, and ultimatelya corruption inquiry, forced Kurz to resign the chancellorship in October 2021. Kurz was replaced byKarl Nehammer in 2021 as party leader and Chancellor. In the2024 Austrian legislative election, the party fell to second behind the FPÖ. Following the surge of the FPÖ in various polls throughout late 2024 and early 2025, as well as the collapse of the ÖVP-SPÖ-NEOS coalition talks, Nehammer resigned as party leader and was replaced withChristian Stocker as acting leader.[7][8] After failed talks with the FPÖ, the party would eventually form a coalition with the SPÖ and NEOS, with Stocker as Chancellor.[9]
For the first election after World War II, the ÖVP presented itself as the Austrian Party (German:die österreichische Partei), wasanti-Marxist and regarded itself as the Party of the center (German:Partei der Mitte). The ÖVP consistently held power—either alone or in so-calledblack–red coalition with theSocial Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ)—until 1970, when the SPÖ formed a minority government with theFreedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). The ÖVP's economic policies during the era generally upheld asocial market economy.
The party's campaign for the2017 legislative election under the party chairmanSebastian Kurz was dominated by a rightward shift in policy which included a promised crackdown onillegal immigration and a fight againstpolitical Islam,[20] making it more similar to the program of the FPÖ, the party that Kurz chose as his coalition partner after the ÖVP won the election. The party underwent a change in its image after Kurz became chairman, changing its colour from the traditionalblack toturquoise, and adopting the nameThe new People's Party (German:Die neue Volkspartei).[4]
The chart below shows a timeline of ÖVP chairpersons and theChancellors of Austria. The left black bar shows all the chairpersons (Bundesparteiobleute, abbreviated as CP) of the ÖVP party and the right bar shows the corresponding make-up of the Austrian government at that time. The red (SPÖ) and black (ÖVP) colours correspond to which party led the federal government (Bundesregierung, abbreviated asGovern.). The last names of the respective Chancellors are shown, with the Roman numeral standing for thecabinets.
Binder, Dieter A. (2004). "'Rescuing the Christian Occident': The People's Party in Austria". In Gehler, Michael; Kaiser, Wolfram (eds.).Christian Democracy in Europe since 1945. Routledge. pp. 121–134.ISBN0-7146-5662-3.
Fallend, Franz (2004). "The Rejuvenation of an 'Old Party'? Christian Democracy in Austria". In Steven Van Hecke; Gerard, Emmanuel (eds.).Christian Democratic Parties in Europe Since the End of the Cold War. Leuven University Press. pp. 79–104.ISBN90-5867-377-4.
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