All ministers from the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party (FPO) will leave the government following Chancellor Sebastian Kurz's proposal to remove Interior Minister Herbert Kickl from his post, according to Austria's Kurier newspaper
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th May, 2019) All ministers from the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party (FPO) will leave the government following Chancellor Sebastian Kurz's proposal to remove Interior Minister Herbert Kickl from his post, according to Austria's Kurier newspaper.On Friday, just over a week before the European Parliament elections, some of the major German media reported, citing a video recording made during a July 2017 meeting in Ibiza, Spain, that an alleged niece of a Russian oligarch had offered former FPO leader Heinz-Christian Strache to provide the FPO with money and to buy half of shares in Austria's largest newspaper in order to make the outlet support the FPO ahead of the 2017 parliamentary elections, while Strache had reportedly offered the woman government construction contracts in return. The scandal resulted in Strache's resignation from the posts of vice-chancellor and FPO leader.
Amid the scandal, Kurz called for holding snap parliamentary elections refusing to maintain a government coalition with the FPO. Kurz's center-right People's Party entered into a coalition with the Freedom Party following 2017 parliamentary elections.
