Freedom Party of Austria - International Relations

International Relations

While the FPÖ is currently not a member of any European or international organisations, the party has ties with several European political parties and groupings. From 1978 to 1993, under the party's liberal leadership, the party was a member of the Liberal International. In the early years of Haider's leadership, meetings were held with figures such as Jean-Marie Le Pen of the French National Front and Franz Schönhuber of the German Republicans. In the late 1990s he however chose to distance himself from Le Pen, and refused to join Le Pen's EuroNat project. Following the FPÖ's entrance in government in 2000, Haider sought to establish his own alliance of right-wing parties. For his project, Haider tried to establish stable cooperations with the Vlaams Blok party in Belgium and the Lega Nord party in Italy, as well as some other parties and party groupings. In the end, the efforts to establish a new alliance of parties were not successful.

Under the leadership of Strache, the party has cooperated mainly with the Vlaams Belang (successor to the Vlaams Blok, which it has traditionally maintained good ties with), and the Pro Germany Citizens' Movement in Germany. The FPÖ also has contacts with the Swiss People's Party, the Danish People's Party, the Slovak National Party, the Sweden Democrats and the German Freedom party. In 2007, the party's then-only MEP was a member of the short-lived Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty grouping in the European Parliament. Outside the EU, it has contacts with Tomislav Nikolić of the Serbian Progressive Party (formerly of the Serbian Radical Party) and the United Russia party. At a conference in 2011, Strache and the new leader of the French National Front, Marine Le Pen, announced deeper cooperation between their parties. Shortly thereafter, the FPÖ attempted to become a member of the Europe for Freedom and Democracy group, but was vetoed by some of its parties. The FPÖ's two MEPs are individual members of the establishing European Alliance for Freedom.