Austia-Hungry Forever? Right-wing candidate for president of Austria wants to unite former Habsburg lands

Budapestbeacon) - Norbert Hofer, the candidate of the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) in next month’s re-run presidential elections, wants Hungary to join a new alliance consisting of former members of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

The far-right politician believes Central European countries with similar cultures, including Austria, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, and the Czech Republic, should form a new bloc within the European Union.

(Apart from the Romanian autonomous region of Transylvania, the Serbian autonomous region of Voivodina, and the Banat of Temes, which was divided between Serbia and Romania after the First World War, neither Serbia nor Romania ever belonged to the Habsburg empire. Nor is it clear what parts of modern-day Poland, Ukraine, or Bosnia Hofer has in mind for his Anschluss. –ed.)

“Austria was in an alliance with these countries during the time of the Monarchy, and I hope that we will easily agree on a platform, that way we will have greater weight in the European Council,” said Hofer in an interview with Swedish paper Dagens Nyheter.

(In point of historical fact, the House of Habsburg ruled over the constituent lands of the Austrian and later Austro-Hungrian empire until the end of the First World War. Any “alliance” was either dynastic in nature or involved military occupation.-ed.)

Hungary’s pro-government media has increasingly been paying attention to Austria’s far-right—and to the FPÖ’s ideas for a new regional bloc. Hungarian state-run news wire MTI ran the story, which was picked up by Hungarian pro-government online news site 888.hu, pro-government newspaper Magyar Idők , and pro-government newspaper Magyar Hírlap.

The renewed focus on the Austrian far-right’s proposal came just as the Hungarian government was in Serbia for a two-day joint session with its Serbian counterparts.

The FPÖ has already attempted to convince the country’s legislature that the country should join the Visegrad alliance of Hungary, Slovakia, the Czechia, and Poland, but the proposal was rejected in October.

Apparently, the party has raised its sights from the Visegrad countries of Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic to all of Vienna’s former imperial subjects.

Hofer raised the idea of an alliance in the past, but over the past few months he has begun actively trying to turn his vision into reality. (FullText)