Austria chooses pro-EU Prez in rebuff to Freedom Party

Austria’s president-elect Alexander Van der Bellen pledged to project a pro-European stance to the world after he saw off a challenge by a candidate from the far-right Freedom Party in a sign of the limits to the populist surge buffeting the European Union.
 
Van der Bellen’s victory over Norbert Hofer in Sunday’s repeat presidential run-off was hailed by political leaders from Brussels to Berlin as a blow against nationalism, after Hofer ran on an anti-immigration ticket and advocated a diminished EU with fewer powers.
 
Austria sent “a signal of hope and positive change throughout Europe,” Van der Bellen, 72, said in a statement broadcast live on public television station ORF.

 

 It’s “a signal that will be taken in and carefully analysed” in the EU’s capitals, he said: “You can actually win elections with a pro-European position.” For a special page on Europe’s year of heightened political risk, click here
 
The Austrian ballot was seen as a bellwether for populist sentiment in Europe after the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s surprise election to the US presidency.
 
 French National Front leader Marine Le Pen and Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders — both of whom will contest national elections next year —offered Hofer their commiserations on Twitter.