The results of regional elections in Lower Austria, where the ÖVP, the party of Chancellor Karl Nehhammer, received the lowest number of votes in history, show that “the anti-Schengen strategy has not worked”, commented the mayor of Timisoara, Dominik Fritz.

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehhammer’s party lost to the right-wing nationalists. The Austrian People’s Party lost its absolute majority in Lower Austria (less than 40% of the vote), and had to seek an alliance for the first time in two decades.

• “The anti-Schengen strategy did not work: the Austrian Chancellor’s party, the ÖVP, won the lowest number of votes in history in the regional elections in Lower Austria yesterday.
• The far-right FPÖ party, which the chancellor tried to emulate with his attacks on Romania and Bulgaria joining Schengen, had its best ever result (almost doubling its votes).
• So it was not worth undermining relations with Romania and the rest of Europe because of cynical electoral calculation.
• Lesson? When you copy the ideas and language of an extremist party, you are not stealing their votes, you are only amplifying them.
• Now is the time for the Austrian government to offer the Austrian people real solutions to strengthen the economy instead of anti-Romanian and anti-European populism.
• The solution for a more prosperous Europe with real economic benefits for both Austria and Romania is for all EU countries to join Schengen.
• Schengen jetzt, Herr Bundeskanzler!”, the mayor of Timisoara wrote on Facebook.

It will be recalled that Romania’s accession to Schengen was blocked by the Chancellor of Austria, who was accused of taking this step in order to increase his electoral score in the internal elections. Nehhammer rejected the idea that Austria’s veto could have been dictated by internal political motives, the Austrian chancellor called it an “absurd assumption” that there was a connection with the elections in Lower Austria.

After the JAI vote on 8 December, both Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehhammer and Interior Minister Gerhard Karner claimed that of the more than 100,000 immigrants or asylum seekers who arrived in Austria, 75,000 were not registered anywhere, and this must have happened when crossing Austria. external border of the EU. They claimed that many of the unregistered arrived via Romania or Bulgaria, contradicting the Romanian authorities.

Last week, Austria’s chancellor warned that Vienna would maintain its veto against the extension of the Schengen zone until it “doesn’t work”: “The large number of migrants detained in Austria shows that the Schengen system is not functioning, and while this system and the protection of external borders doesn’t work, there can’t be an extension either.”