The global right wing. This is how Vedran Jihic, a lecturer at the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Vienna, describes the links of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) of Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik with the far-right Freedom Party in Austria (FPO). The latter, known for Islamophobia and anti-immigrant policies, won the most votes in Austria’s parliamentary election on September 29.However, with 29 percent of the vote won, the Herbert Kickl-led party will not be able to form a government alone.
FPO delegation on visit to Serbia
A few weeks before the elections, a delegation of the FPO-a party founded in the mid – 1950s by the then National Socialists-was received in Belgrade by senior Serbian officials.
Austrian officials, led by MEP Harald Vilimsky, met on September 4 with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.
Serbia’s presidency did not issue any announcements after the meeting, while Vilimsky posted a photo on his Instagram profile, showing him shaking hands with Vucic.
Below the photo, he writes that”there was a great exchange of ideas”.
“Serbs are not only a very valuable part of the European family of nations, but also our true friends and we hope, soon, the engine of the European Reform alliance,” Vilimsky said.
On the same day, he also met with the speaker of the Serbian Parliament, Ana Brnabic, who, like Vucic, supports the ruling Serbian Progressive Party.
Brnabic said after the meeting that the FPO delegation ” expressed a desire to deepen cooperation with Serbia” and “expectations for further strengthening of friendly relations with our country”.
In light of these meetings, RFE / RL asked the Serbian presidency and Brnabic’s cabinet where co-operation with the FPO would be based and whether Serbia’s representatives see any problems in the fact that the Austrian party is positioned on the far-right spectrum, but, until the publication of this article, did not receive a response.
Vilimsky said in an interview with the Serbian newspaper Vecernje Novosti that he had talked with Vucic about “how they can unite”.
” Let’s create an alliance to stop the attacks of left-wing politicians on Serbia and Hungary and deepen the relations we are cultivating now, ” he said.
How long does the cooperation between the Serbian government and the Austrian right-wing take?
Jihic says that the cooperation of the SNS and SNSD with the Freedom Party dates back to previous years and adds that the ideological closeness of these parties can be based on several focal points.
One of them, according to him, is the very conservative observation of the nation as a bloodthirsty community threatened by “global elites, liberal democracy and multiculturalism”.
“So we have the development of a right-wing global international, such as the Socialist International once was, which connects from America through Europe to Russia and so on,” says Jihic.
According to him, Serbian President Vucic understands that the political winds in Europe are increasingly blowing to the right.
“His ultimate goal is-as we already see and know from Serbian political practice-to stay in power as long as possible, to reduce the amount of criticism from the West, to cover up or camouflage everything that happens in Serbia regarding the rule of law, the functioning of institutions, economic interests. And for that, he wants and needs allies,” says Jihic.
Relations with Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin are also something that the SNS, SNSD and FPO share, according to him.
“Even the Austrian Freedom Party, at one time, had a special agreement for cooperation with Putin’s party in Russia. So the leaders of the Freedom Party, among them Herbert Kickl, have visited Moscow,” says Jihic.
He adds that the Kremlin, on the other hand, supports the European right through its disinformation campaign.
The Serbian league
The support of the Freedom Party for Serbia regarding the issue of Kosovo is not surprising, given that the Serbian diaspora in Austria represents a significant part of the FPO electorate, for which the British newspaper “Economist”has written.
According to Xhiqi, this is an aspect that FPO officials also see interest in.
“For years, we have active groups of citizens from Serbia, from Republika Srpska, who are active in the Freedom Party, who promote those values and try to gather as many votes as possible from Serbs in Austria, as a large number of them have Austrian citizenship and can vote,” says Jihic.
An important link between the Austrian right-wing party and the Serbian political scene is Konstantin Dobrilovic.
Dobrilovic was on the FPO list in the European Parliament elections in the middle of this year.
In an interview with Euroneporbs on the eve of the EP elections, Dobrilovic said that he represents so-called healthy patriotism, which is a pillar of FPO policy, as well as “turning every EU member state, first of all, towards the needs of its citizens”.
As can be seen in the photo, he was among those present at the meetings of the FPO delegation in Belgrade in September.
But this was not Dobrilovic’s only meeting with local Serbian officials in the past six years.
In February 2018, he met with the president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, while the current Prime Minister of Serbia and the chairman of the SNS, Milos Vucevic, met in March 2024, when Vucevic was in the post of Defense Minister.
” A substantive conversation with Konstantin Dobrilovic, the candidate of the Austrian Freedom Party in the upcoming elections for the European Parliament, ” Vucevic wrote on Instagram after that meeting.
RFE / RL contacted Dobrillovic via Instagram to ask him about his contacts with politicians in Serbia, but, until the publication of this article, he did not respond.
Dodik and FPO
In addition to politicians from Serbia, Dobrilovic also met the president of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, and the leader of the pro-Russian Democratic Front, Andrija Mandic, who is currently Speaker of the Parliament of Montenegro.
Dodik has long had close relations with the Freedom Party.
More specifically, he had good relations with Heinz-Kristian Strachen, the party’s former leader and Austrian vice chancellor from 2017 to 2019.
In 2015, Dodik’s Party published a picture of him and Strache on social networks, along with Dodik’s quote that “Serbs living in Vienna should support the FPO, because it is good for Serbs in Austria”.
In 2018, Strache received an award from Dodik for, as stated, “special merits in the development and strengthening of cooperation and political relations between Republika Srpska and Austria”.
Strache resigned as vice-chancellor in the Austrian government and was expelled from his party following a video scandal from 2017 in which he was seen offering state contracts allegedly to a Russian financier.
Dodik described the video as” clockwork ” and said he would continue to cooperate with the FPO.
When the Freedom Party won more seats in the European Parliament compared to other Austrian parties, Dodik sent a short congratulatory message through platform X.
Dodik, however, did not comment on Austria’s far-right success in parliamentary elections.
The Freedom Party’s relationship with Russia
Contrary to the official position of the Austrian state, the FPO opposes sanctions imposed by the EU against Russia because of the invasion of Ukraine.
In this regard, Vilimsky sees allied Serbia, he said in an interview with the Serbian newspaper “Novosti”.
Serbia, otherwise, refuses to join Western sanctions against Russia, even though at the United Nations it condemned the invasion of Ukraine.
However, the focus of Vilimsky’s party is mainly on the issue of immigrants, especially those from Middle Eastern countries.
The FPO strongly opposes immigrants from Islamic countries, saying such an attitude preserves “the social peace and cultural identity of Austria”.
Similar views are expressed by Vilimsky on social networks.
He commented on the days-long protests by the Kurdish community in Paris that turned into street riots in late 2022.
“How many more cities do we have to burn before the last one realizes that we import violence and contempt of society into Europe, and even finance it here,” he wrote on January 2, 2023.
In September 2022, he said that “Austria’s borders are fenced off” as during the Great refugee wave in 2015, but that the media did not report on it.
“The crowds go into silence. The Austrian government and the EU are collapsing along the entire border line. Close the borders! Now!”Vilimsky wrote in X.
There is a similar situation in Kosovo
The FPO delegation that visited Belgrade in September also included Maximilian Krauss.
This politician started his career in the youth wing of the Freedom Party.
Krauss, as stated in an interview for the Serbian newspaper “Politika”, has recently submitted to the Vienna Parliament a proposal for a resolution that disputes Kosovo’s independence.
Austria recognized Kosovo’s independence in 2008, which was opposed by the far right.
