BRUSSELS – European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said there shouldn’t be criticism of a new ideological coalition in Austria under the European Union’s youngest leader because Greece has one just like it.
Austria is now being led by Sebastian Kurz, 31, head of the Conservative Austrian People’s Party who went far to the right to bring in the Freedom Party of Heinz-Christian Strache, an anti-immigrant Euroskeptic party.
“This government (Austria) has a clear pro-European stance – as I am working with the extreme right coalition partner with (Greek Prime Minister and Radical Left SYRIZA leader Alexis) Tsipras, why are we making a whole thing out of Austria, when we like to be partially blind when it comes to other countries?” he said, referring to SYRIZA’s alliance with the pro-austerity, marginal, jingoistic Independent Greeks (ANEL) led by Defense Minister Panos Kammenos.
Kammenos has been firing off rightist fusillades after giving his party’s nine votes to SYRIZA so the government can have a scant three-vote majority in Parliament and at one point said Greece would unleash jihadists among refugees on Europe unless Greece got backing against its creditors before he, as did Tsipras, surrender to them.
After being elected in January, 2015, Tsipras said he would bring a Leftist revolution to Europe before succumbing to pressure from the Troika of the European Union-European Central Bank-European Stability Mechanism (EU-ECB-ESM) that is putting up a third bailout, this one for 86 billion euros ($102.21 billion) the Premier said he’s reject but then accepted, along with more austerity measures he swore to reverse.