Austrian far-right efforts to form government collapse

VIENNA

Austrian far-right leader Herbert Kickl's efforts to form a coalition government with a conservative party have collapsed in mutual recriminations, more than four months after his party won a national election.

Austria’s president last month gave Kickl a mandate to try to form a new government — the first to have been headed by the far right since World War II — after other parties' efforts to put together a governing alliance without his Freedom Party failed.

But Kickl on Feb. 12 informed President Alexander Van der Bellen that he was giving up the mandate.

Weeks of tense talks with the conservative Austrian People’s Party appeared increasingly troubled in recent days.

Kickl’s anti-immigration party, which also opposes sanctions against Russia, won Austria’s parliamentary election in September.

It took 28.8 percent of the vote and beat then-Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s People’s Party into second place.

Kickl blamed the People's Party for the latest collapse of talks.

In a letter to the president released by his party, he said the parties failed to agree on clearing up disputed policy points or how to share the work of various ministries.

He added that there appeared to be no point in trying to negotiate with the center-left Social Democrats, the only other party with which the Freedom Party could reach a parliamentary majority.

His Freedom Party is highly skeptical of the European Union, opposing EU support for Ukraine and advocating for some powers to be brought back from the bloc to Austria.