Free Republic

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte today (13 June) admitted a referendum called by euroskeptic groups on whether to back closer ties between Ukraine and the EU had been “disastrous” after voters soundly rejected the pact. “I’m totally against referenda, and I’m totally, totally, totally against referenda on multilateral agreements, because it makes no sense as we have seen with the Dutch referendum,” Rutte told a conference of European MPs. “The referendum led to disastrous results,” he added. …

They called it an “election gimmick” and a “campaign gag”, but the new president-elect of Austria once presided over his party’s campaign that declared: “Anyone who loves Austria must be shit”. Alexander Van der Bellen – who appears to have defeated the Freedom Party’s Norbert Hofer by around just 30,000 of nearly five million votes – has a track record of opposing the nation state as a concept, and his own as a reality. In 2007, while he was leader of the Austrian Greens, the party published a picture of a dog with the Austrian flag in its mouth. The...

<p>Vienna (AFP) - Austrian far-right hopes of winning a presidential runoff remained on hold Sunday as the candidates were neck-and-neck in a battle closely watched by the EU, which is struggling to contain a surge of anti-immigrant parties.</p> <p>A win would see Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party (FPOe) become the European Union's first far-right head of state.</p>

Initial results showed the presidential election run-off was neck and neck Independent candidate Alexander Van der Bellen has 'emerged as winner' Norbert Hofer, from the Freedom Party, is said to have conceded defeat Hofer used a pre-election event to deliver an anti-Muslim message to voters Austria's Far-Right presidential candidate Norbert Hofer has conceded defeat in his election bid to become the EU's first anti-immigrant leader. The EU had been on tenterhooks this morning as Austria waited to see whether Hofer had won an election run-off against Independent candidate Alexander Van der Bellen. Projected results last night had put both...

Mr Hofer led narrowly after Sunday's election but postal votes gave Mr Van der Bellen victory by 50.3% to 49.7%. Mr Van der Bellen campaigned on a pro-EU platform, backed by the Green Party. Mr Hofer, of the Freedom Party, tapped into anti-EU sentiment and fears about rising numbers of asylum seekers. He conceded victory on his Facebook page. Mr Hofer said it was a sad day and that he would have gladly served as president.

More than 260,000 people in Austria have signed a petition urging the Austrian government to leave the European Union (EU). According to reports on Thursday, as many as 261,159 Austrians signed the petition. The number in total represents 4.12 percent of the country's electorate. Since under the country's regulations the threshold for calling a debate on a potential referendum is 100,000 people, the Austrian parliament must discuss a referendum on leaving the EU. The call for leaving the EU was most popular in the regions of Lower Austria and in Carinthia where 5.18 percent and 4.85 percent of potential voters,...

Work has started on a new 'border control centre' on the Brenner Pass Minister hinted it may include a barrier like the one on Slovenian border European Commission 'very concerned if these plans were to materialise' Barrier would deal another major blow to the passport-free Schengen zone The European Union today said it is 'very concerned' that Austria may be planning to build a fence on its border with Italy over fears of a new migrant influx. Austrian Defence Minister Hans Peter Doskozil announced plans to introduce border controls at the Brenner Pass crossing from June 1 as part of...

VIENNA (AFP) - Austria's government was licking its wounds Monday after a historic debacle that saw the opposition anti-immigrant far-right triumph in a presidential ballot two years before the next scheduled general election. According to preliminary results, Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party (FPOe) came a clear first with 36 percent of the vote, while candidates from the two governing parties failed to even make it into a runoff on May 22. The result means that for the first time since 1945, Austria will not have a president backed by either Chancellor Werner Faymann's Social Democrats (SPOe) or their centre-right...

The far-Right appeared close to seizing the Austrian presidency on Sunday night, in an election result that will send shockwaves through Europe. Norbert Hofer, the gun-toting candidate of the Freedom Party (FPÖ), won almost twice as many votes as his nearest rival, according to exit polls.

A couple in Austria with nine children, including two who are severely disabled, are allegedly requesting IVF treatment so they can have more. The story has caused a heated debate in Austria, with some criticising the request from the family - who are originally from Afghanistan - as they already received around €5,682 a month in benefits.

Give it a few years and the police will be telling women attacked by Muslims to wear hijabs and then burqas. This is how Islamic law happened originally. It's happening all over again in countries being invaded by Islam. The incident happened when the young woman, identified only by her first name Sabina, who lives in the capital Vienna had been waiting for a train on the S6 line at the city's main Westbahnhof station.

In the latest shocking incident a 27-year-old woman was allegedly assaulted while waiting at a bus station in the village of Grinzing on the outskirts of the capital Vienna. She said: "He was Arabic looking and had a cord around his waist instead of a belt. “All he could say was ‘sex, sex, sex’ and then he pulled out a condom from his trouser pocket.” The attack comes just days after Norbert Hofer, candidate of the anti-migrant Freedom Party (FPO), took pole position in the presidential elections.

An illegal migrant with a long criminal history has brutally murdered a 54-year-old woman on a Vienna street while she was on her way to work. News headlines in Austria Wednesday morning were focused on one topic, the brutal killing of a 54-year-old woman by an illegal migrant from Kenya. The woman was walking down the street at 2:30am on her way to work with a colleague when the man, armed with an iron bar, bludgeoned her to death. The two women worked as cleaners for so-called gambling cafes reports OE24 .

A 20-year-old asylum seeker from Iraq confessed to raping a 10-year-old boy at a public swimming pool in Vienna. The Iraqi said the rape was a "sexual emergency" resulting from "excess sexual energy." Those who dare to link spiraling crime to Muslim mass migration are being silenced by the guardians of Austrian multiculturalism. According to data compiled by the Austrian Interior Ministry, nearly one out of three asylum seekers in Vienna was accused of committing crimes in 2015. North African gangs fighting for control over drug trafficking were responsible for roughly half of the 15,828 violent crimes — rapes, robberies,...

Austria’s Social Democratic Chancellor stood down in a shock announcement this morning amid collapsing support for traditional parties in the country, in a move which has been called “a beautiful day for Austria” by his insurgent nationalist opponents. Socialist-left Chancellor Werner Faymann’s Social Democratic Party of Austria failed to even make it to the second round of voting in last month’s presidential elections, as citizens voted overwhelmingly for candidates from alternative political movements. Just one in ten Austrians voted for the party in government. After the count, only Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party of Austria and Alexander Van der...

Austria could elect the European Union's first far-right head of state on Sunday, with support for Freedom Party candidate Norbert Hofer buoyed by a migration crisis that has heightened fears about employment and security. Opinion polls suggest the presidential run-off between Hofer and former Greens leader Alexander van der Bellen will be close. A far-right victory would resonate across the 28-member EU, where migration driven by conflict and poverty in the Middle East and elsewhere has become a major political issue. Support for groups like the eurosceptic, anti-immigration Freedom Party (FPO) has been rising in various countries, whether they have...

Austrians have headed to the polle to elect a new president in run-of elections. Early results by one polling institute gave far-right candidate Norbert Hofer a marginal lead at almost 51 percent. Norbert Hofer was projected to become Austria's first far-right president with 50.9 per cent of the votes, according to pollsters of the ARGE Wahlen group say. His lead over Green Party rival Alexander van der Bellen remains too narrow to call a definite winner. Former Green party chief van der Bellen was projected to gain 49.1 per cent of the ballots. ARGE said they were fairly certain that...

According to the interior ministry's final count of votes cast at polling-stations (in German), Mr Hofer took 51.9% to 48.1% for Mr Van der Bellen. But ORF public TV's projection (in German), which is usually considered reliable, has both men on 50%.

One month ago, pro-European voices in Austria, and all of Europe, were suddenly muted when in the first round of the Austrian presidential election, Norbert Hofer head of Austria Freedom Party (FPO), described as a "Euroskeptic, right-wing, anti-immigrant party" crushed his opposition buoyed by a migration crisis that has heightened fears about employment and security across the continent, and gathered a whopping 35% of the vote leaving the other five legacy candidates far behind.

Poland consolidated its rightwing shift on Sunday as exit polls showed voters had handed an absolute majority in its parliamentary election to Law and Justice, a Eurosceptic party that is against immigration, wants family-focused welfare spending and has threatened to ban abortion and in-vitro fertilisation.