Austria's conservatives said no to Kickl. Now they are negotiating his route to the chancellery.

Herbert Kickl did not need another election to improve his chances of becoming Austria's chancellor. He needed the parties trying to keep him out to stop negotiating with one another.

They did so in the first days of January. The liberal NEOS walked away from coalition talks on 3 January. Discussions between the conservative People's Party and the Social Democrats collapsed the following day. Chancellor Karl Nehammer announced his departure, and his successor as conservative party leader signalled that talks with Kickl were now possible.

On 6 January, President Alexander Van der Bellen asked the Freedom Party leader to try to form a government.

The mandate opens a route to Austria's first postwar government led by the far right. It does not put Kickl in office. He still needs an agreement with the conservatives, a cabinet acceptable through the constitutional appointment process and a parliamentary basis durable enough to govern.

The change is nevertheless substantial. The man whom Nehammer had excluded as a coalition partner is now negotiating from the position of prospective chancellor. Christian Stocker, the People's Party's new interim leader, must bargain with a politician his party had recently presented as a serious risk to the country.

By 13 January, the two parties had produced their first joint announcement: a fiscal roadmap intended to cut the deficit and avoid an EU excessive-deficit procedure. Kickl used the speed of the accord to contrast the new negotiations with the failed centrist attempt.

But a budget headline is the beginning of this negotiation. The parties still have to agree what an Austrian government led by a Eurosceptic nationalist would actually do in Brussels, how they would divide authority in Vienna and which promises would survive the spending restraint they have just endorsed.

The majority that never became a government

The parliamentary arithmetic has not changed since September.

The Freedom Party won 57 of the National Council's 183 seats. The People's Party took 51, the Social Democrats 41, NEOS 18 and the Greens 16. Kickl's party finished first with about 28.8 percent of the vote, well ahead of its previous national result, but without the numbers to govern alone.

A Freedom Party-People's Party coalition would hold 108 seats. A conservative-Social Democrat agreement would have 92, the narrowest possible absolute majority. Adding NEOS would have produced 110 seats and a more comfortable margin.

Those alternatives explain why winning the most votes did not immediately deliver Kickl the first attempt at government formation. A parliamentary majority could be assembled without him, and the leaders of the two other largest parties had refused to serve with him. Van der Bellen initially gave Nehammer the task of exploring a workable government.

That course was constitutionally and arithmetically possible. It was politically demanding. The proposed partners needed to agree on more than their objection to the Freedom Party leader. They had to reconcile different views on taxation, pensions, public services and the distribution of a difficult budget adjustment.

NEOS leader Beate Meinl-Reisinger explained her party's withdrawal in terms of insufficient ambition for reform. Her 3 January statement criticised the unwillingness to confront entrenched interests and to pursue deeper changes in pensions, health care and federal structures. NEOS wanted participation in government to produce identifiable reforms, rather than responsibility for administering a compromise it regarded as inadequate.

The Social Democrats offered a different account of the wider breakdown. Andreas Babler said his party had continued to propose solutions and accused the conservatives of ending talks. He argued that a faction more interested in working with the Freedom Party had prevailed inside the People's Party.

Nehammer, for his part, said the fundamental disagreements could not be overcome and announced that he would step down as chancellor and party leader. His decision removed the conservative politician most publicly associated with refusing a government under Kickl.

These accounts should not be collapsed into a single uncontested explanation. The parties have reasons to allocate blame before the next phase begins. What is established is the sequence: the three-party negotiation failed, the two-party fallback failed, and the conservative leadership changed.

Stocker's appointment on 5 January made the change operational. A party that could not agree a programme with the Social Democrats was now prepared to discuss one with the Freedom Party. The presidency no longer faced the same set of declared coalition possibilities.

Van der Bellen explained his decision in those terms. He acknowledged his longstanding differences with Kickl but said he had to respect the parliamentary majorities that could, or could not, be formed. He also reiterated the importance of constitutional principles, European cooperation and the rights of minorities.

The mandate is therefore best understood as a test of a newly available majority. It is neither a presidential endorsement of the Freedom Party's entire programme nor a guarantee that the proposed coalition will pass that test.

The first agreement has a price tag

The first joint presentation gave Kickl and Stocker a figure around which to build a story of progress.

On 13 January, they announced a package intended to improve the 2025 budget balance by roughly €6.3 billion. The aim was to bring the deficit within the European Union's 3 percent reference level and avert an excessive-deficit procedure. Their public outline emphasised spending measures and avoiding new taxes.

The Freedom Party presented the agreement as evidence that rapid decisions were possible once the right parties were at the table. Its announcement was made alongside conservative negotiators, giving the public a first image of a potential governing partnership.

The speed is politically useful. It does not yet demonstrate the full economic or administrative effects of the measures. A savings target must eventually be translated into decisions about particular programmes, subsidies, ministries and obligations. Those decisions create identifiable winners and losers in a way an aggregate number does not.

For the conservatives, the agreement suggests that their preferred approach to consolidation may be easier to negotiate with the Freedom Party than with the Social Democrats. For Kickl, it offers a claim to managerial seriousness alongside the anti-establishment language that helped his party win the election.

There is a tension inside that combination. The Freedom Party has attacked the established parties for failing to protect ordinary Austrians. Entering office on a programme of restraint would require it to explain which reductions leave that promise intact. Describing expenditure as excessive is easier before the recipients of that expenditure are named.

The People's Party has a different exposure. It was the senior party in the outgoing government and cannot credibly describe the entire fiscal inheritance as someone else's creation. Its negotiators must both defend parts of their record and agree to reverse or reduce some of what government has been doing.

The EU dimension adds another irony. Kickl's party criticises constraints imposed from Brussels, yet the opening fiscal agreement is explicitly designed to satisfy a European benchmark and preserve greater control over the adjustment. Avoiding formal corrective scrutiny is itself a reason to negotiate within the existing European framework.

That can be a pragmatic choice. It should not be confused with agreement on all European policy. A coalition may share a deficit target and still disagree about sanctions, Ukraine, migration negotiations or how much discretion an Austrian chancellor should exercise in European meetings.

Nor can the proposed partners treat a fiscal roadmap as if it were already an adopted budget. They are negotiating a government programme. The administration currently in office is a different legal and political entity, and parliament will have its own role in approving measures that require legislation.

The practical test will arrive when the detailed package is published. It should be possible to distinguish recurring savings from one-off measures, proposals from decisions and changes under federal control from those requiring cooperation elsewhere in Austria's system.

If that detail supports the headline, the early agreement could provide a foundation for government. If it does not, the same budget problem that frustrated the previous talks will reappear inside the new ones, regardless of how quickly the first press conference was arranged.

Vienna negotiates. Schallenberg goes to Brussels.

Austria's government has continued to function while the parties bargain.

On 10 January, Van der Bellen entrusted Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg with leading the interim administration and managing the chancellery after Nehammer's resignation. The arrangement provides continuity without claiming that a new coalition has been formed.

Schallenberg's role is particularly relevant abroad. He travelled to Brussels on 13 January with a message that Austria remained a reliable and constructive European partner. That reassurance describes the position of the administration he leads. It cannot bind a future coalition whose programme is still being negotiated.

The distinction will matter to other governments. They can work with the current Austrian ministers on ongoing business while watching for evidence of how a Kickl-led cabinet might behave. Continuity of diplomatic representation does not necessarily mean continuity of policy after a change in leadership.

The People's Party says Austria's European orientation matters to it. The Freedom Party approaches the Union from a more confrontational position and has opposed aspects of the response to Russia's war against Ukraine. These differences cannot all be reduced to the familiar domestic argument over immigration.

At the European table, the question becomes what Austria agrees to, blocks or seeks to amend. A coalition agreement could set out common principles, but the partners would also need a way to handle decisions arising after the document is signed.

Stocker acknowledged the limits of such an agreement in comments reported by Der Standard on 13 January. Asked about the risk that Kickl might vote differently in Brussels from what partners had agreed, including on Ukraine, he recognised that not everything could be regulated in advance.

That is a revealing admission from the politician who would have to make the partnership work. It identifies trust as a practical governing resource. If the parties cannot rely on one another to implement a shared position, every European meeting can become another coalition negotiation.

Austria's military neutrality adds a further layer. It is an established feature of the country's security policy, but invoking it does not automatically settle questions about economic sanctions, diplomatic support or obligations arising from EU membership. Those require political choices that a coalition cannot avoid by repeating the word neutrality.

The domestic distribution of ministries will be equally consequential. Portfolios are not merely prizes for individual politicians. They determine who drafts legislation, directs departments, oversees implementation and represents Austria in particular European councils.

The outgoing conservative leadership's objection centred on Kickl himself. A deal under his leadership would therefore need a persuasive account of what had changed beyond the name at the top of the People's Party. Stocker can argue that parliamentary circumstances demand negotiation. Voters can still ask which safeguards make an arrangement acceptable now that was unacceptable during the campaign.

Kickl has leverage, but not unlimited freedom. The Freedom Party cannot produce a majority from its own 57 seats. A potential conservative partner can refuse a programme or insist on terms, even after opening talks. The costs of another failure would fall on both parties, but the need for agreement remains mutual.

For the Social Democrats and NEOS, the failed negotiations create their own burden of explanation. They can criticise a prospective government led by the far right while still having to account for why the alternative did not materialise. Opposition to Kickl is a political position; delivering an alternative majority is a separate achievement.

The president also remains part of the process. His assignment of exploratory authority has not removed the constitutional requirements around appointing a government. The eventual programme and personnel, if an agreement is reached, will have to be presented as more than an agreement to share seats around the cabinet table.

Austria is thus in a transitional phase that should not be reported as a completed transfer of power. Kickl has received the mandate. Stocker has opened negotiations. The parties have announced a fiscal direction. Schallenberg is still heading the interim government.

The striking development is how quickly the boundary of the possible moved after the centrist talks failed. No seats changed hands. No voters were asked to reconsider their choice. One party changed its leadership and its willingness to negotiate, and the route to the chancellery opened for a man it had promised to keep out.

Whether that route reaches a swearing-in ceremony depends on decisions still to come. The first real evidence will be in the programme the parties can jointly defend, especially where their opening statements continue to point in different directions.