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Cameron’s referendum gives ideas to Austrian far-right

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Published 24 January 2013

The leader of Austria's far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) has called for a referendum on whether the country should give up the euro and said leaving the European Union was a possibility, according to a newspaper interview.

Saying he was inspired by British Prime Minister David Cameron's promise of a referendum on whether to leave the European Union, FPÖ head Heinz-Christian Strache the daily Österreich this was just the kind of direct democracy Austria needed as well.

"If the EU develops into a centralised super-state then the final consequence for Austria would be an EU exit. I would rather have an alliance with Switzerland," Strache said.

"It would make sense to have a referendum on a euro exit," he said.

Strache, whose opposition party has consistently scored more than 20% in opinion polls in the run-up to parliamentary elections due by September, has long been a eurosceptic.

He has opposed bailouts of struggling countries in the currency bloc, and proposed splitting the eurozone into two camps: economically stronger northern European countries and weaker ones on the periphery.

Billionaire auto parts magnate Frank Stronach, whose new party gets around 10% support in polls, is another vociferous critic of the euro.

But the governing coalition of centre-left Social Democrats and the centre-right People's Party is staunchly pro-Europe.

Opinion polls show most Austrians are glad their export-dependent economy uses the euro.

EurActiv.com with Reuters

COMMENTS

  • Bye bye EU.

    I'll give it 10-12 years at the very most.

    By :
    James
    - Posted on :
    24/01/2013
  • James, you English eurosceptics, now friends with the Austrian neo-Nazis, have always claimed that the EU has only a few years left, right from the 1950s when the EEC first started. You've been wrong for the past 65 years, however.

    By :
    European
    - Posted on :
    25/01/2013
  • English eurosceptics and Austrian neo-Nazis. Very remarkable union indeed.

    By :
    Otto
    - Posted on :
    03/02/2013
  • Since Cameron's creation of the "European Conservatives and Reformists" party in the European parlement (2009), aren't every british conservative MEP anyway sitting together with the most-extremist fringe-parties of the european right-wing "cream", in such countries as Czeck republic and Poland, Danmark, Holland and Flandres, without forgeting Hungary and Northern Italy (in the 30's - 40's, all these countries played a role in the rise of european fascism, which isn't that different from Austria's history vis-a-vis the Nazis)?

    By :
    uk-skeptic
    - Posted on :
    13/02/2013

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