VIENNA Jan. 3 (DPA/EP) –
The Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPO) reaffirmed this Friday its willingness to negotiate a possible coalition government with the conservatives of the Austrian People’s Party (OVP) after the failure of the first round of negotiations.
The talks have been blown up this Friday once the centrist New Austria and Liberal Forum (Neos, for its acronym in German) has abandoned the process due to an alleged lack of commitments from its interlocutors on budgetary issues.
“Our hand remains extended,” said the leader of the SPO, Andreas Babler, leaving in the hands of the chancellor and leader of the OVP, Karl Nehammer, the decision to continue with bilateral negotiations to leave out the extreme right, winner of the elections. .
Babler has demanded that the necessary budget consolidation not fall on workers, pensioners and civil servants, but on the richest sectors of the population. This grand coalition would have a narrow majority of one vote in Parliament.
The departure of Neos from the negotiations has ruined a process that began in mid-November and that could produce a government never before seen in Austria that would certify the “cordon sanitaire” to the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO).