Wolfgang Schüssel

In the 1999 election, Schüssel's ÖVP finished third, trailing Jörg Haider's Freedom Party (FPÖ) by 415 votes. After a series of talks to renew the grand coalition with the SPÖ failed, Schüssel sought a coalition with the Freedom Party.

Jörg Haider, as leader of the larger party, would typically have been the presumptive chancellor, with Schüssel remaining vice chancellor. However, it was apparent that Haider was too controversial to serve in the government, let alone lead it. The FPÖ thus agreed to support Schüssel as chancellor, and Haider did not join the cabinet. Schüssel was sworn in on 4 February 2000, with Haider's successor as FPÖ leader, Susanne Riess-Passer, as vice chancellor. His government was the first in 30 years not to be led by the SPÖ.

Schüssel's government was immediately highly controversial due to the inclusion of the Freedom Party. Schüssel was perceived as having breached the long-standing cordon sanitaire against right-wing populist parties in Europe. This and the association of Haider with the government sparked widespread criticism both domestically and internationally. The Guardian reported that, during the decisive days of Schüssel's negotiations, caretaker Chancellor Viktor Klima had "urged fellow EU leaders to help influence the coalition bargaining."[2]

The ÖVP had been a member of every government from 1945 to 1970 and from 1986 onwards, but even in opposition had never been completely excluded from power. The post-war tradition of consensus-building meant that representatives of all major interest groups in the country were to be consulted before any policy was enacted. Schüssel, however, broke with that tradition in order to rapidly implement the reforms he felt necessary. This was received poorly by many Austrians, who considered the consensus-building approach to be an unwritten part of the constitution. Between 2000 and 2002, there were weekly protests throughout Vienna against the government, dubbed the Donnerstagsdemonstrationen (Thursday demonstrations).

The Schüssel government was received poorly by governments internationally, including those of the fourteen other European Union member states, due to its cooperation with the FPÖ. An initiative was organised, with encouragement from much of the Austrian left-wing, to express international disapproval. Because nothing in the legal framework of the European Union enabled official action to be taken, informal "sanctions" were imposed – for several months, many other national leaders engaged in social and diplomatic ostracism of the Schüssel government, refusing any unnecessary interaction. Participants included French president Jacques Chirac, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, and leading Belgian politicians. Government supporters frequently blamed the SPÖ and President Thomas Klestil for this campaign, accusing them of disloyalty to Austria.

After several months without any change in the situation, a delegation of high-ranking EU diplomats – Martti Ahtisaari, Marcelino Oreja and Jochen Frowein – was sent to Austria to examine the political situation and determine whether the so-called "sanctions" could be lifted. Their report did not find conditions that would permit EU members to institute any official measures under EU law, but did present proposals for how EU law could be modified to resolve such a situation in the future. These proposals were incorporated in the Treaty of Nice, ratified in 2001. Following the report, EU leaders quietly "lifted" the sanctions and returned to normalcy during the summer of 2000, despite the situation in Austria remaining unchanged.

By the summer of 2002, a series of setbacks in local and regional elections had resulted in considerable internal strife in the FPÖ. When the leading figures of the more pragmatic wing of the party, Vice-Chancellor Susanne Riess-Passer and Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser, announced their resignations, Schüssel called early elections. The ÖVP recorded its best result since 1983, winning 42.3% of votes cast and overtaking the SPÖ for the first time since 1966. After negotiating with both the SPÖ and The Greens, Schüssel decided to renew the coalition with the FPÖ, which had won just 10% of votes. On 28 February 2003 Schüssel was sworn in as Chancellor for a second time.[3]

In April 2005, the FPÖ effectively split into two parties. The bulk of the party, including Haider, the FPÖ cabinet ministers, and most of the FPÖ parliamentary caucus, formed the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ), while most party members and state branches remained with the old party. Despite this change, Schüssel continued the coalition, which served out the remainder of the legislative term.

In the 2006 legislative election, the ÖVP lost many of the voters it had won over in 2002, and fell back to second place against the SPÖ. In addition, the BZÖ won just 7 seats, leaving the outgoing government well short of a majority. While a three-party coalition with both the FPÖ and BZÖ would reach a slim majority, Schüssel stated after the election that a coalition with either party "would not be reasonable". The SPÖ and ÖVP began the process of negotiating a grand coalition. Schüssel served as caretaker Chancellor until the new government was sworn in on 11 January 2007; he also served briefly as acting Minister of the Interior following the death of Liese Prokop on 31 December 2006.[4]

Austria succeeded the United Kingdom as holder of the Presidency of the European Council on 1 January 2006. In the presence of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Schüssel promised to lead the European Union "hand in hand" with Germany, and Merkel promised that Germany would do everything to "help" Austria during its presidency and make it a success. Schüssel also stated that Austria needed "some friends of the presidency". This led to Brussels diplomats describing the Austrian presidency as "the small German presidency", according to French newspaper Le Figaro.

• Investcorp, member of the European Advisory Board (since 2011)
• RWE, member of the supervisory board (since 2010)[6]
• Deutsche Vermögensberatung (DVAG), member of the advisory board[7]
• Lukoil, member of the board of directors (2019–2022)[8][9]
• MTS, member of the board of directors (2018–2019)[10][11]

• Konrad Adenauer Foundation, chairman of the board of trustees (since 2015)[12]
• United Europe, president (since 2013)
• World Economic Forum (WEF), member of the Global Agenda Council on Public Finance and Social Protection Systems[13]
• DER Dialog Europe-Russia, member of the board (since 2011)
• Foreign Policy and United Nations Association of Austria (ÖAGVN), president (since 2008)
• Bertelsmann Stiftung, member of the board of trustees (2007 to 2016)[14]
• Allensbach Institute, member of the board of trustees[15]
• Broader European Leadership Agenda (BELA), member of the advisory board[16]
• Club of Madrid, Member[17]
• Gesellschaft für Außenpolitik, member of the international advisory board
• Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, member of the Honorary Board[18]
• Austrian Society for China Studies (ÖGCF), member of the Presidium
• European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), member
• European Policy Centre (EPC), program chair "European Politics and Institutions"[19]
• Global Leadership Foundation, member

When the European People's Party (EPP) membership of Hungarian party Fidesz was suspended in 2019, EPP president Joseph Daul appointed Schüssel – alongside Herman van Rompuy and Hans-Gert Pöttering – to a group of high-level experts who were mandated to monitor Fidesz's compliance with EPP values.[20][21]