Barely a few weeks ago, no one would have bet on him: the curator Christian Stocker became this Monday, March 3 at 64, Chancellor in Austria, coronation of a long career but in the shadows. He officially took an oath at the end of the morning under the gold of the Hofburg palace before the environmental president Alexandre Van der Bellen, who stressed the importance of having a stable government by “the difficult times in which we live”.
“Especially after last weekend,” he added in reference to the reactions aroused in Europe by the violent altercation in the oval office between US President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky. “The European Union is a great economic power. Many seem to have forgotten it,” insisted the head of state, calling the block to “unity” to display its “strength”.
Brussels will now be able to count on the pro-European government of Christian Stocker, who will lead the country of 9.2 million inhabitants with the Social Democrats and the Liberals, a three-composed partition composed in pain. The extreme right, arriving at the top of the legislative elections at the end of September, is relegated to the opposition benches after having lacked the historic opportunity to win the Chancellery for the first time.
Voltage
Classic costume and your affable, the Austrians really only discovered Christian Store in January, when the outgoing chancellor Karl Nehammer threw the sponge without finding a majority. Then appeared in the light the secretary general of the ÖVP party, who first steel his compatriots while sweeping a campaign promise in 24 hours: that of not pacting with the nationalist party FPö, founded by former Nazis.
The situation was new, said this child of the ball – his father already sat in parliament -, negotiations with the left and the liberals having turned short. A flip-flop which the voters, “who forget quickly”, should not keep him rigor, believes the political scientist Peter Hajek.
The one we did not wait until a tactician, leaving FPö Herbert Kickl, who had the hand, lock in his maximalist positions. Before bringing up his party – number two of the elections – as a bulwark against an authoritarian drift. And the laborious discussions led by his predecessor are, under his governance, went very quickly, accelerated by the rapid geopolitical upheavals.
Former lawyer
“The ÖVP has been able to show flexibility” by leaving the Ministry of Finance to the Social Democrats, underlines the analyst, Christian Storing “gradually reinforcing his credibility and sharpening his public profile”.
This is how a former lawyer from Basse-Austria, a fly fishing lover, has become the new party’s face, far from the notoriety of Sebastian Kurz, Chancellor Star between 2017 and 2021. For which CV? In the 2000s, Christian Stocker was a local section manager and deputy mayor in his hometown of Wiener Neustadt (east), where he organized citizen meetings around a good beer for a quarter of a century. Married, two children, he only succeeded his father in 2019 on the bench of deputies.
Noticed for having carried out the ÖVP boat well during a thorny parliamentary commission on a corruption case, he was appointed secretary general three years later, abandoning golf courses and his saxophone, two of his other hobbies. But is it cut for the position? The most “improbable” post -war chancellor in Austria – the word is the weekly Profile – has many challenges awaiting it: immigration, inflation, recession.