Austrian Freedom Party
The Austrian far right party, founded in 1955 from the Liberal League, which entered government in 2017.
Overview
The FPO was founded in 1955 by ex Nazis of the VdU, a pan German liberal nationalist current. Under Jorg Haider from 1986 it radicalized into the European prototype of the populist right, governing Carinthia and entering national coalition in 2000 to EU sanctions. After Haider 2008 death, Heinz-Christian Strache and Herbert Kickl carried it to the 2017 coalition that collapsed in the 2019 Ibiza scandal. Kickl led it to first place in 2024 elections, though excluded from the chancellorship by other parties. Its template of welfare chauvinism and migration politics shaped the European radical right far beyond Austria.
Related Parties
Scottish National Party
The SNP formed in 1934 from a merger of nationalist bodies and spent decades on the fringe, its breakthrough coming with Winnie Ew...
UK Independence Party
UKIP formed in 1993 to campaign for withdrawal from the European Union, growing under Nigel Farage from a fringe into the largest ...
Alternative for Germany
The AfD began in 2013 as a Eurosceptic professors party opposing euro bailouts, riding the euro crisis to near the five percent th...
National Socialist German Workers Party
The NSDAP grew from the German Workers Party, which Hitler took over in 1919-1920, fusing racial antisemitism, virulent nationalis...