Global Policy Forum

By David Evans

Brussels - A chill wind of political isolation hit Austria on Friday after a new government including the controversial far-right Freedom Party of Joerg Haider was sworn into office. The United States recalled its ambassador for consultations and European Union countries froze bilateral political contacts with Vienna. Israel withdrew its ambassador and Belgium cancelled a $1 million Defense Ministry contract for armoured ambulances with an Austrian firm.

"We, as the homeland of the survivors of the Holocaust, will not tolerate that regime in Austria," Israeli cabinet minister Haim Ramon told reporters in Tel Aviv. "It has been agreed that we will impose certain sanctions on Austria," Danish Foreign Minister Niels Helveg Petersen said of the EU sanctions. "We will refuse to meet Austrians at ministerial level...The 14 other EU countries are agreed on carrying out these sanctions," he told Danish Radio News.

A firebrand populist, Haider has rung alarm bells across Europe with past comments -- since repudiated -- playing down Nazi crimes and opposing the EU's ambitious enlargement plan. Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt hinted that stronger EU measures were possible but he did not say whether he had secured any agreement with other European leaders. "There is a willingness to go further, but we want to do it together with our European partners,'' he told a news conference.

US Recalls Ambassador

In Washington, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who was raised in Europe during the Nazi period, said the United States would limit contacts with the new government and recall its ambassador for temporary consultations. "There is clearly no place...in a healthy democracy for a party that does not clearly distance itself from the atrocities of the Nazi era and the politics of hate," she said. "The United States will react firmly and forcefully to any deviation by Austria from the democratic principles that underlie our partnership with Europe."

Argentina, which welcomed Nazi war criminals in the 1940s but later tried to root them out and extradite them, criticised the inclusion of the Freedom Party in Austria's new coalition and called on other South American governments to do the same.

Russia took a more cautious stance, saying it was watching closely how events unfolded. "We will make judgements on the basis of concrete steps and actions taken by the Austrian government. At the same time, we have great trust in Austrian democracy and in Mr. Schuessel himself," Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told a news conference.

Outside Vienna's imposing Hofburg Palace, where President Thomas Klestil swore in a new cabinet led by conservative Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, police baton-charged thousands of angry opponents of Haider's right-wing party.

Haider Outside Government

He will not be in the government himself but members of his party will hold the vice-chancellorship, and finance, defense, justice and social affairs portfolios. The EU's top foreign policy representative, Javier Solana, said he backed the member states' stance, criticised by some as meddling in a country's democratic process. "I think Europe has given a very good example of how in important things -- things that have to go with principles, with values -- there's no possibility of compromise," he said.

NATO supreme commander Wesley Clark scrapped a planned visit to Vienna, although an alliance spokesman denied this was related to the new coalition of conservatives and the far right.

German Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping, on a visit to the Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip, called the fledgling coalition an ''historic mistake.''

British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said London would be watching the performance of the new government closely. "We have made clear our deep distaste at the inclusion in the Austrian government of a far-right party which appeals to xenophobia," he said in a statement.