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When Dragan “Palma” Marković brought a few dance movements to FPOe politician Johann Gudenus last October, this was more than just an exhilaration at a common feast. Marković is considered a symbol of wild Nineties throughout Serbia. The bald member of right party of United Serbia, a former amateur boxer and in era of Milošević owner of a notorious music piranha, had organized a celebration and booked turbo-folk-star Ceca. She is widow of Marković ‘ political companion Željko “arcane” Ražnatović, a Serbian warlord.
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The actual important date took place before festival. Palma visited n deputy mayor Gudenus in Vienna City Hall, reminded of Serbian support for Liberals and said: “We expect FPOe ministers to continue to support Serbia in new government.”
Four months later, wish came true: Before Vice-chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache travelled to Belgrade at beginning of February, he had Serbian newspaper Politika know: “Kosovo is undoubtedly a part of Serbia.” The problem: Austria officially acknowledged independence of Kosovo 2008. As a criticism, Austria’s vice-Chancellor said he had referred to Serbian law.
Since spring of 2007, two years after Heinz-Christian Strache had taken over Liberals, FPOE does not only support Serbian nationalists, but also shows sympathy for Vladimir Putin. 2016, party even concluded a cooperation agreement with Kremlin party some Russia. Serbia’s commitment is understandable because of diaspora in Austria. The rapprochement with Russia made no sense at first. The FPOe always denied getting money from Moscow.
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Without a doubt, party found increasingly authoritarian regime in Russia attractive with its conservative legal traits. However, since FPOe’s government involvement, alliances in south and east have detonated coalition with ÖVP, which does not want to leave EU consensus on key foreign policy issues. And because all intelligence services are subject to FPOe ministers, Western intelligence circles fear that information could seep from Vienna to Moscow. In any case, foreign-policy ghost rides of his liberal coalition partner are a potential danger for Chancellor Sebastian in short.
This article comes from time No. 09/2018. Here you can read entire output.
The enthusiasm of FPOe dominated by Burschenschaftern in Serbia came unexpectedly: German nationals in Austria had cultivated a deep aversion to Serbia since 19th century, and Jörg Haider called 1998 to a military strike against Belgrade regime for Action in Kosovo.
Haider’s successor Strache changed line. In February 2007, at a reception at Serbian embassy in Vienna, he publicly criticized efforts to split Kosovo from Serbia. Three months later, he described province as a “Urserbisches area” and began to give best to sentence of Slobodan Milošević, “Kosovo JE Srce Srbije” (“Kosovo is heart of Serbia”) in broken Serbian.
The affection of FPOe to Vladimir Putin began almost at same time. Before Russian President 2007 came to Vienna for a state visit, Strache reminded us of human rights violations and stated that Putin was very welcome. Strache also found clear words about Georgia war a year later: While Russia was criticized internationally for its military operation, FPOe chief showed an understanding of it.
In background, Georgian businessman and Prorussian politician Levan Pirveli played an important role. In his homeland, he was known for hitting a political opponent in a restaurant in 2001 according to Georgian Human Rights Information Center and shooting at him. Later he was accused of murdering a 21-year-old student. Before a possible prosecution he fled to Austria and got political asylum.
Pirveli was not unknown in Vienna: For an energy project by Pirvelis Anglo Oil International Ltd and a state-owned Georgian company, Raiffeisen Central Bank had awarded 1998 a loan. The project failed. After election of pro-Western Mikhail Saakashvili to Georgian President, his government refused to compensate Raiffeisen – despite state guarantees. Only after anor change of Power did Tbilisi start: between 2015 and 2017, 25 million dollars were transferred to Vienna.
