The Boy Wonder of Europe's Political Right Will Be Back

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The old world’s conservatives are going through tough times. Last week’s elections to the European parliament showed their support is shrinking, and many of the governments they lead are on shaky ground. To add insult to injury, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, the movement’s bright young hope, has been ousted – becoming the country’s first leader to suffer the ignominy of losing a no-confidence vote since World War II.

Yet Kurz is still the man to watch, perhaps more so than Germany’s Christian Democratic Party leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, or Hungary’s authoritarian leader, Viktor Orban – all of whom are laying their own claims to the role of conservative beacons.

What Kurz has achieved in Austria in his relatively short tenure, his reaction to the scandal that broke his ruling coalition, and his all-in bid to secure a parliamentary majority in the next election are all signs of a clear vision, strong principles, and a willingness to take reasonable risks – all qualities that are hard to find in many of today’s global leaders. 

Today, only seven out of 28 European Union nations are led by a member of the European People’s Party family, the umbrella group for traditional conservatives. Hungary and Bulgaria are the only two where the center-right’s hold on power is secure; the rest are run by uneasy governing coalitions, wobbly minority cabinets or, in Austria’s case, by a provisional government.

Despite the no-confidence vote, Kurz looks set to be the only western European leader capable of asserting control and pushing through a coherent legislative agenda after September’s election. Last week, his Austrian People’s Party (or OeVP) achieved its best result at a European election in its history, taking almost 35 percent of the vote. It is close to 40 percent support in some general election polls.

Kurz is only 32, which makes him easy to accuse of rookie mistakes. But neither his decision to form a coalition with the far-right Freedom Party nor his move to dismantle the alliance earlier this month should count as one.

The reluctance of establishment parties to embrace nationalists and populists as coalition partners has helped to feed resentment among voters and deepen the divide between elites and blue-collar voters. Kurz’s effort to work with the nationalists made sense because he could be a moderating influence on them and their voters. By bringing them into government, he could also expose their unseemly behavior to the full glare that comes with being part of the system. True, the nationalists were a constant irritant to Kurz, but the coalition as a whole achieved much in a short time.

In 2018, the government’s only full year in office, it managed to loosen inflexible labor market rules, extend the maximum working day to 12 hours, allow restaurants to keep longer hours, and even slightly relax the firm ban on working on Sundays and holidays. It also drastically simplified Austria’s health insurance system. In concessions to the Freedom Party, it cut social assistance to asylum seekers and sped up the extradition of those whose claims had been rejected – but then Kurz and his OeVP voters aren’t exactly pro-immigration, either.

The measures appeared to have helped to lower unemployment – which fell to 4.8% last year from 5.6% in 2017 – and maintain healthy economic growth, at 2.7% last year. And the Kurz government achieved a budget surplus for the first time since 1974. 

The government’s program was an unabashedly conservative, pro-business, fiscally cautious one, which earned it harsh criticism from the left. But it was consistent, and it could by no means be called populist. Love or hate Kurz’s beliefs, he acted on them and brought the FPOe along.

The anonymous sting operation that felled Heinz-Christian Strache, his vice chancellor and coalition partner, can’t be blamed on Kurz himself. He could still have held the coalition together by accepting Strache’s resignation and continuing to work with a replacement, and so avoid the no-confidence vote. Yet he moved resolutely to dissolve the alliance – even if, in the era of U.S. President Donald Trump and Poland’s Jaroslaw Kaczynski, political scandals are much devalued.

This was a principled move rather than a political calculation. Kurz preferred the humiliation of the no-confidence vote and the risk of an early election to being tarnished by a continued association with Strache’s party. Perhaps the divorce with the FPOe came too late – but it’s hard to reproach Kurz for not rushing that as the alliance helped him push his program through.

Kurz’s task in the September election is daunting. His OeVP party is highly unlikely to win an outright majority. It will need more support than it has now – as well as significant policy compromises – if it is to form a coalition with smaller parties like the liberal NEOS and the Greens. But if Kurz gets the votes, and negotiates as cleverly as he did with the nationalists, he will be able to press on with his program – which includes an effort to lower one of Europe’s most onerous tax burdens.

Kurz’s consistency, ability to get results, fighting spirit and anti-corruption commitment (at least by Austria’s often lax standards) set him apart from today’s generation of conservative leaders. He doesn’t skew liberal like Varadkar and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, nor does he lean toward authoritarianism like Orban, and he is a proven election winner.

He is learning as he goes along, but at least he isn’t ignoring the hard lessons he’s being taught. European conservatives shouldn’t write him off as their boy wonder and the embodiment of their movement’s future.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Edward Evans at eevans3@bloomberg.net

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Leonid Bershidsky is Bloomberg Opinion's Europe columnist. He was the founding editor of the Russian business daily Vedomosti and founded the opinion website Slon.ru.

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