Percorso:ANSA > Nuova Europa > News > Austria: Kurz rejects talk of eastern EU alliance
Austria: Kurz rejects talk of eastern EU alliance
Country won't move closer to the Visegrad group
05 January, 16:42
(ANSA) - SEGGAUBERG - Austria's new chancellor Sebastian Kurz
rejected suggestions that his government will align with eastern
European Union nations that have clashed with the bloc over
migrants and other issues.
Kurz leads a coalition with the traditionally euroskeptic Freedom Party that took office just before Christmas. Both Kurz' conservative People's Party and the Freedom Party have taken a hard line against migration. The position has generated speculation that Austria could move closer to the Visegrad group of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia than to its western EU allies.
Kurz warned against "over-interpreting things. There are measures and initiatives where we have goodwill in western European countries. There are others where we will perhaps get applause from the Visegrad countries, and still others where we agree with all other 27 EU member states".
Kurz called for an EU that is strong on "big questions" such as border security but leaves many policy decisions to individual countries and regions. Austria will hold the EU's rotating presidency in the second half of this year, when the bloc should be finalizing the terms of Britain's departure. "I very much hope that we succeed in organizing an orderly departure by the British", Kurz said. (ANSA).
© Copyright ANSA - All rights reserved
Kurz leads a coalition with the traditionally euroskeptic Freedom Party that took office just before Christmas. Both Kurz' conservative People's Party and the Freedom Party have taken a hard line against migration. The position has generated speculation that Austria could move closer to the Visegrad group of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia than to its western EU allies.
Kurz warned against "over-interpreting things. There are measures and initiatives where we have goodwill in western European countries. There are others where we will perhaps get applause from the Visegrad countries, and still others where we agree with all other 27 EU member states".
Kurz called for an EU that is strong on "big questions" such as border security but leaves many policy decisions to individual countries and regions. Austria will hold the EU's rotating presidency in the second half of this year, when the bloc should be finalizing the terms of Britain's departure. "I very much hope that we succeed in organizing an orderly departure by the British", Kurz said. (ANSA).
