Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg will be the country's interim prime minister while the far-right Freedom Party tries to form a new coalition government, the president's office announced today.
Schallenberg will take over from outgoing Chancellor Karl Nehmer, who announced his resignation over the weekend after his efforts to form a coalition without the Freedom Party failed. Nehamer plans to retire on Friday.
The office of President Alexander Van der Bellen announced that he would formally entrust Schallenberg "to lead the interim government."
It will be the second time that Schallenberg has served as Prime Minister of Austria. Schallenberg was chancellor for less than two months at the end of 2021 after Sebastian Kurz resigned and before the prime minister's job went to Nehamer, who returned to the Foreign Ministry.
The anti-immigration, Eurosceptic and Russia-friendly Freedom Party of Austria won parliamentary elections in September, but other parties then said they would not cooperate with it on forming a government.
After Nehamer announced his resignation, his conservative Austrian People's Party made a sharp U-turn from its previous refusal to even consider cooperation with the Freedom Party and its leader Herbert Kikl.
Kikl was given a mandate on Monday to try to form the first far-right-led government since World War II. It's a process that can take weeks or months and is not guaranteed to work. Schallenberg said he would not remain in the government under Kikla.
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