Richard,
Thanks for the Excellent article-because it is the truth!
Look at what Clinton's buddies in the EU and U.N. are trying to do to Austria's rights as a sovereign country! Do you think they will have to bring in NATO; like they did in Kosovo? I cannot believe that Austria as a country is now not allowed to control immigration of drug dealers and criminals...So what happens if this country (U.S.) decides to better control immigration of drug dealers and terrorists along the Mexican border and now Canada; with the recent entry of terrorists into Seatle and Vermont?
Anyone else awake to the possibilities of this precedent being applied to the United States and who we elect?
Shawn
Europeans Threatening Austria Over Anti-Immigrant Party
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
ARIS, Jan. 31 -- The European Union warned today that its 14
other members would diplomatically isolate Austria if its
anti-immigrant Freedom Party led by J”rg Haider enters a coalition government.
The statement, issued in Portugal, said the other members of the European Union "will not promote or accept any bilateral official contacts at a political level" with any Austrian government that included Mr. Haider's party. Portugal now holds the European Union's presidency.
Austrian candidates for posts in international organizations would find no support, it said, and Austrian ambassadors "will only be received at a technical level."
It said that "the Portuguese prime minister and the minister of foreign affairs had already informed the Austrian authorities that there would be no business as usual in the bilateral relations with a government integrating" Mr. Haider's party.
Prime Minister Ant¢nio Guterres of Portugal justified the action. "We had to send a very clear signal that behavior of a racist or xenophobic character will not be tolerated within the European Union," he told Portuguese television.
It was the first time the union has issued such a warning to a member state. Austrians were shocked, and a diplomatic crisis seems inevitable.
"I find it strange if the 14 E.U. states were to come to such a decision without consultations with the member state Austria," The Associated Press quoted Foreign Minister Wolfgang Schssel as saying, adding that he "appeared caught off-guard" and was trying to make contact with his
Portuguese counterpart.
Mr. Haider's own reaction, Reuters said, was that if the president and other parties bowed to foreign pressure, "then we might as well abolish democracy in this country straight away."
Since it became clear last week that Mr. Haider had a chance of being in government, the European news media have been full of articles implying that Nazism is on the rise in Austria, a charge that many Austrians vigorously reject and resent.
Mr. Haider's party, which favors cutting off immigration to Austria and preventing European Union expansion because it is likely to bring more Eastern Europeans over Austria's borders, came in second in the October elections, with 27 percent of the vote.
The party has grown from 5 percent when Mr. Haider took over in 1986, but political analysts say it is not entirely because of its stance on immigation. Instead, they say, the party's supporters are fed up with the cozy patronage relationship between the Social Democrats, in power for 30
years, and the People's Party, which has governed jointly with them for the last 13.
Last week, the first-place Social Democrats and the third-place People's Party failed to revive their coalition. So Mr. Haider began negotiations with the People's Party on forming a coalition with 104 seats in the 183-seat legislature, squeezing out the Social Democrats.
Israel immediately reiterated a threat made in October to cut off diplomatic relations. Other European countries, led by France and Belgium, steadily ratcheted up their denunciations.
Prominent Austrians seemed dumbstruck today by the European announcement. "This is very, very, very, very strange," said Alexander van der Bellen, the leader of the Green Party, which came in fourth in October. "As an Austrian, I feel terrible. As head of the Green Party, I can only say that we wanted to block the participation of the Freedom Party in government, but still. . . ."
The threats, he said, would probably only make Austrians more likely to snap back that "no foreigners can tell us what to do," as was the case had when they elected Kurt Waldheim as president after he had been soundly condemned abroad for lying about the fact that he had been an officer in a German Army unit that committed atrocities in Yugoslavia during World War II.
Mr. Haider contends that the hostility is really panic by Social Democrats elsewhere Europe and that even Israel is reacting largely to the prospect of an ally being forced out of power.
France and Belgium face third-party challenges, while Christian Democrats in France and Germany are engulfed in scandals.
He also says his critics know almost nothing about him. President Jacques Chirac of France, Mr. Haider said this weekend, "greeted me warmly at a state reception" not long ago, "and now suddenly he is against us."
The French foreign minister, Hubert V‚drine, gave a radio interview today in which he enumerated ways that a European country could be punished if it was found to have violated
fundamental human rights.
He said that "what we want is for them to give up" on plans to let the Freedom Party into government. "But if they don't, then Austria will be under surveillance as no country has ever been in the European Union," he said.
He also used the expression, "Europe is no longer in the 1930's," as other diplomats have to remind listeners that Hitler, an Austrian, came to power in Germany through the ballot box.
Mr. V‚drine was apparently making the point that Europe now has mechanisms to discipline countries in such circumstances.
But many Austrians resent the comparison, and political analysts seem startled that Europe would issue threats on the possibility that Mr. Haider would join a government.
At the moment, he is not being spoken of for a cabinet-level post.
A French official, explaining his government's thinking, said Mr. Haider had made "a number of anti-Semitic statements." Challenged on that, he called back to say that Mr. Haider had made none.
He said Mr. Haider had endorsed the employment policies of the Third Reich, "which is very hard for Frenchmen who were deported to work for the Germans to hear." But the endorsement was one sentence in the heat of a debate for which Mr. Haider later apologized.
Asked how France would react if other European countries isolated it if Jean-Marie Le Pen's right-wing National Front got enough votes to join a government, the French official joked that he would be happy because he would not want to be governed by Mr. Le Pen, but said, "On the principle, you have a point."
Portugal said there was no rift within Europe on the Austria decision.
In 1994 in Italy, a right-wing party, the National Alliance, formed a coalition government with the Forza Italia party. Some European leaders expressed outrage, but backed down on imposing any sanctions.
It is not easy to characterize Mr. Haider because his positions are all over the political map.
Professor van der Bellen has called him an opportunist and a "political chameleon,"[sounds like Clinton, but of course the socialists love Clinton] and many Austrian analysts agree. Imitating Newt Gingrich, he calls his platform, "Contract With Austria."
He is definitely opposed to more immigration, and has used the word "over-foreignization," which many find redolent of Naziism. He implies that immigrants are responsible for Austria's crime rate and "drug problem", for welfare fraud and for increases in tuberculosis in public schools. His words may fall on receptive ears because Austrians are heavily taxed, and until recently, the country has had liberal asylum policies and benefits for Balkan refugees. But he also gives voice to the frustration with the bickering and the patronage machines of the Social Democrats and the People's Party, a renamed Christian Democratic party.
Austrians are so disgusted with the two parties' failure to form a government since October that polls suggest that if new elections were held today, Mr. Haider would get 33 percent of the vote this time.
He has praised the Waffen SS as a unit of the German Army and thus deserving of the respect the military normally gets. Such statements have been damning to his reputation, but they were made in an Austria that long refused to face up to its Nazi past and instead portrayed itself as "Hitler's first victims."
Last week, Mr. Haider said he would "shame" his critics by proving not to be the ogre he is painted. This weekend, he was harsher, saying Austria had not demanded the removal of a Belgian government accused of corruption and said Mr. Chirac "has really done everything wrong in recent years that could be done wrong."
Today, he stepped back, saying he wanted "no conflict with Belgium or France," and adding, "If you want me to apologize, I will."
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