Anger Over Austrian Rightists Likely to Fade

It was Austria's people, not its political establishment, that wanted the radical right-wing in power — and Austria being a democracy, they got their way despite unprecedented international pressure to keep Jorg Haider's Freedom party out of government. President Thomas Klestil Thursday agreed to swear in a coalition government Friday comprising the mainstream conservative People's party and the anti-immigrant populist party led by a man whose previous statements sympathetic to Third Reich policies and to the notorious Waffen SS have caused Israel, the U.S. and European countries to threaten to isolate Austria. "President Klestil admitted yesterday that his hands were tied," says TIME Central Europe bureau chief Andrew Purvis. "His only alternative would be to call a general election, in which the Freedom party would do even better, because the foreign outcry over Haider has actually seen his popularity surge from 27 percent in last October's election to 33 percent." Austrians, plainly, don't like being told what to do.

Despite the furor over Haider's musings on Nazis, the more troubling issue for the E.U. may be the new government's Europe policy. "Haider isn't actually pro-Nazi and nor are his supporters," says Purvis. "But he isa demagogue whose xenophobic and anti-immigration views are considered dangerous in Europe. Haider opposes plans to expand the European Union into Eastern Europe, and that could create a major problem for the E.U. since they operate by consensus." The People's party, for its part, has affirmed that it remains committed to E.U. enlargement, but European governments will keep a close watch on Austria's policies on Europe and immigration. Unless Austria actually breaks with E.U. policy, however, isolation of Vienna is unlikely to go beyond such symbolic gestures as Israel's withdrawing its ambassador. And in a bid to assuage the critics, Haider has signed a statement saying Austria accepts her responsibility for "the horrendous crimes of the National Socialist regime." But Vienna will be measured less by what's in its history textbooks than by what's on its statute books, and the democratic choice of 27 percent of Austrians may have done their country's image irreparable harm.