Austrian People's Party#Platform

The ÖVP is the successor of the Christian Social Party, a staunchly conservative movement founded in 1893 by Karl Lueger, mayor of Vienna and highly controversial right-wing populist. Most of the members of the party during its founding belonged to the former Fatherland Front, which was led by chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, also a member of the Christian Social Party before the Anschluss. While still sometimes honored by ÖVP members for resisting Adolf Hitler, the regime built by Dollfuss was authoritarian in nature and has been dubbed as Austrofascism. In its present form, the ÖVP was established immediately after the restoration of Austria's independence in 1945 and it has been represented in both the Federal Assembly ever since. In terms of Federal Assembly seats, the ÖVP has consistently been the strongest or second-strongest party and as such it has led or at least been a partner in most Austria's federal cabinets.

File:Mitgliederzahl parteien Österreichs - Party membership of parties in Austria.png

In the 1945 Austrian legislative election, the ÖVP won a landslide victory in Austria's first postwar election, winning almost half the popular vote and an absolute majority in the legislature. However, memories of the hyper-partisanship that had plagued the First Republic prompted the ÖVP to maintain the grand coalition with the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) and the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) that had governed the country since the restoration of independence in early 1945. The ÖVP remained the senior partner in a coalition with the SPÖ until 1966 and governed alone from 1966 to 1970. It reentered the government in 1986, but has never been completely out of power since the restoration of Austrian independence in 1945 due to a longstanding tradition that all major interest groups were to be consulted on policy.

After the 1999 Austrian legislative election, several months of negotiations ended in early 2000 when the ÖVP formed a coalition government with the right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) led by Jörg Haider. The FPÖ had won just a few hundred more votes than the ÖVP, but was considered far too controversial to lead a government. The ÖVP's Wolfgang Schüssel became Chancellor—the first ÖVP Chancellor of Austria since 1970. This caused widespread outrage in Europe and the European Union imposed informal diplomatic sanctions on Austria, the first time that it imposed sanctions on a member state. Bilateral relations were frozen (including contacts and meetings at an inter-governmental level) and Austrian candidates would not be supported for posts in European Union international offices.{{cite web|url=http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/feb2000/haid-f22.shtml|title=The European Union's sanctions against Austria|publisher=WSWS|date=22 February 2000|access-date=4 September 2012}} Austria threatened to veto all applications by countries for European Union membership until the sanctions were lifted.{{cite news|first=Donald G.|last=McNeill|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/04/world/a-threat-by-austria-on-sanctions.html|title=A Threat By Austria on Sanctions|work=The New York Times|date=4 July 2000|access-date=4 September 2012}} A few months later, these sanctions were dropped as a result of a fact-finding mission by three former European prime ministers, the so-called "three wise men". The 2002 legislative election resulted in a landslide victory (42.27% of the vote) for the ÖVP under Schüssel. Haider's FPÖ was reduced to 10.16% of the vote. At the state level, the ÖVP has long dominated the rural states of Lower Austria, Upper Austria, Salzburg, Styria, Tyrol and Vorarlberg. It is less popular in the city-state of Vienna and in the rural, but less strongly Catholic states of Burgenland and Carinthia. In 2004, it lost its plurality in the State of Salzburg, where they kept its result in seats (14) in 2009. In 2005, it lost its plurality in Styria for the first time.

After the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ) split from the FPÖ in 2005, the BZÖ replaced the FPÖ in the government coalition which lasted until 2007. Austria for the first time had a government containing a party that was founded during the parliamentary term. In the 2006 Austrian legislative election, the ÖVP were defeated and after much negotiations agreed to become junior partner in a grand coalition with the SPÖ, with new party chairman Wilhelm Molterer as Finance Minister and Vice-Chancellor under SPÖ leader Alfred Gusenbauer, who became Chancellor. The 2008 Austrian legislative election saw the ÖVP lose 15 seats, with a further 8.35% decrease in its share of the vote. However, the ÖVP won the largest share of the vote (30.0%) in the 2009 European Parliament election with 846,709 votes, although their number of seats remained the same.

The ÖVP had minor losses in the 2013 Austrian legislative election, and the grand coalition with the SPÖ continued until the 2017 Austrian legislative election, when the ÖVP changed its colour to turquoise and won its first legislative election since 2002. The party underwent a change in its image after Sebastian Kurz became chairman, changing its colour from the traditional black to turquoise, and adopting the alternate name The New People's Party ({{langx|de|Die neue Volkspartei}}).{{cite web |title=Our History |url=https://www.dieneuevolkspartei.at/Die-Geschichte |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190929171903/https://www.dieneuevolkspartei.at/Die-Geschichte |archive-date=29 September 2019 |access-date=9 September 2020 |publisher=Austrian People's Party}} It became the largest party after the 2017 election, and formed a coalition government with the FPÖ.{{cite web |date=16 October 2017 |title=Austria election results: Far-right set to enter government as conservatives top poll |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/austria-election-exit-poll-result-sebastian-kurz-ovp-latest-projection-freedom-far-right-a8001811.html |access-date=17 October 2018 |work=The Independent}} This collapsed eighteen months later due to the Ibiza affair, leading to the 2019 election, after which the ÖVP formed a new coalition with The Greens.{{Cite web |last=red |first=ORF at |date=2020-01-01 |title=Neue Regierung: Kurz und Kogler präsentierten Einigung |url=https://orf.at/stories/3149364/ |access-date=2020-01-01 |website=news.ORF.at |language=de}}

An investigation into the Ibiza affair by a parliamentary subcommittee, an unstable Cabinet plagued by resignations, and ultimately a corruption inquiry, forced Kurz to resign the chancellorship in October 2021. Kurz was replaced by Karl Nehammer in 2021 as party leader and Chancellor. In the 2024 legislative election, the party fell to second behind the FPÖ. Following the surge of the FPÖ in various polls throughout late 2024 and early 2025, as well as the collapse of the ÖVP-SPÖ-NEOS coalition talks, Nehammer resigned as party leader and was replaced with Christian Stocker as acting leader.{{Cite web |date=2025-01-04 |title=Austrian Chancellor Nehammer says he will resign after talks on forming a new government fail |url=https://apnews.com/article/austria-politics-talks-collapse-2e4ce6802617c2ac7a6d28f4842df38e |access-date=2025-03-03 |website=AP News |language=en}}{{Cite web |date=2025-01-05 |title=Austrian People's Party nominates Christian Stocker as interim leader after Nehammer resigns |url=https://www.voanews.com/a/austrian-people-s-party-nominates-christian-stocker-as-interim-leader-after-nehammer-resigns-/7924879.html |access-date=2025-03-03 |website=Voice of America |language=en}} After failed talks with the FPÖ, the party would eventually form a coalition with the SPÖ and NEOS, with Stocker as Chancellor.{{Cite web |title=Three-party Austria government takes office, ending months of deadlock |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/3/christian-stocker-becomes-austria-chancellor-as-three-party-govt-sworn-in |access-date=2025-03-04 |website=Al Jazeera |language=en}}

{{Conservatism in Austria|Parties}}

The ÖVP is described as Christian-democratic,{{cite book|author=Marco Peverini|title=Promoting Rental Housing Affordability in European Cities: Learning from the Cases of Milan and Vienna|publisher=Springer Nature Switzerland|year=2023|isbn=9783031436925|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Aw3kEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA58|page=58}}{{cite book|first1=Gary|last1=Marks|first2=Carole|last2=Wilson|chapter=National Parties and the Contestation of Europe|editor1=T. Banchoff|editor-first2=Mitchell P.|editor-last2=Smith|title=Legitimacy and the European Union|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GgvLEFPY8l4C&pg=PA126|access-date=26 August 2012|year=1999|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0-415-18188-4|page=126}}{{cite book|first=André|last=Krouwel|title=Party Transformations in European Democracies|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w4DMRL66gOIC&pg=PA291|access-date=14 February 2013|year=2012|publisher=SUNY Press|isbn=978-1-4384-4483-3|page=291}}{{Cite book |last=Bale |first=Tim |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1256593260 |title=Riding the populist wave: Europe's mainstream right in crisis |date=2021 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |others=Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser |isbn=978-1-009-00686-6 |location=Cambridge, United Kingdom |pages=34 |oclc=1256593260}} conservative,{{cite book|first1=Edgar|last1=Grande|first2=Martin|last2=Dolezal|first3=Marc|last3=Helbling|first4=Dominic|last4=Höglinger|title=Political Conflict in Western Europe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6_zivrfDd3AC&pg=PA52|access-date=19 July 2013|year=2012|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-02438-0|page=52}}{{cite book|first=Terri E.|last=Givens|title=Voting Radical Right in Western Europe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SDY2CGcPJwkC&pg=PA23|access-date=19 July 2013|year=2005|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-44670-9|page=23}} and liberal-conservative.{{cite book|author=Ralph P Güntzel|title=Understanding "Old Europe": An Introduction to the Culture, Politics, and History of France, Germany, and Austria|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8gJ4DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA162|year= 2010|publisher=Tectum Wissenschaftsverlag|isbn=978-3-8288-5300-3|page=162}}{{cite book|author= Janne Haaland Matlary|title=Hard Power in Hard Times: Can Europe Act Strategically?|publisher=Palgrave Macmillian|year=2018|isbn= 9783319765143|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eflcDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA108|page=108}} The party has also been described as a catch-all party of the centre-right, in the vein of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany.{{cite book|author1=Mark Kesselman|author2=Joel Krieger|author3=Christopher S. Allen|author4=Stephen Hellman|title=European Politics in Transition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FGK0Ht0OM_IC&pg=PA229|accessdate=17 August 2012|year=2008|publisher=Cengage Learning|isbn=978-0-618-87078-3|page=229}}{{cite book|author=Sarah Elise Wiliarty|title=The CDU and the Politics of Gender in Germany: Bringing Women to the Party|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4xYAlBYDvrkC&pg=PA221|accessdate=17 August 2012|year=2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-76582-4|page=221}} For most of its existence, the ÖVP has explicitly defined itself as Catholic and anti-socialist, with the ideals of subsidiarity as defined by the encyclical Quadragesimo anno and decentralisation.

For the first election after World War II, the ÖVP presented itself as the Austrian Party ({{langx|de|die österreichische Partei}}), was anti-Marxist and regarded itself as the Party of the centre ({{langx|de|link=no|Partei der Mitte}}). The ÖVP consistently held power—either alone or in so-called black–red coalition with the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ)—until 1970, when the SPÖ formed a minority government with the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). The ÖVP's economic policies during the era generally upheld a social market economy.

The party's campaign for the 2017 legislative election under the party chairman Sebastian Kurz was dominated by a rightward shift in policy which included a promised crackdown on illegal immigration and a fight against political Islam,{{cite web|url=https://www.dw.com/en/make-austria-great-again-the-rapid-rise-of-sebastian-kurz/a-40313720|title=Make Austria Great Again — the rapid rise of Sebastian Kurz|work=Deutsche Welle|access-date=17 October 2018}} making it more similar to the program of the FPÖ, the party that Kurz chose as his coalition partner after the ÖVP won the election. The party underwent a change in its image after Kurz became chairman, changing its colour from the traditional black to turquoise, and adopting the name The new People's Party ({{langx|de|Die neue Volkspartei}}).

ÖVP-Logo (80er).svg|Logo used in the 1980s

ÖVP Logo.svg|Logo before 2017

Austrian People's Party logo.png|Logo with flag before 2017

Volkspartei Logo 2018.svg|Party logo 2017 - 2022

Logo neue VP tuerkis.png|Turquoise variant of the Party-Logo 2017 - 2022

Volkspartei Logo 2022.svg|Party Logo since 2022

The chart below shows a timeline of ÖVP chairpersons and the Chancellors of Austria. The left black bar shows all the chairpersons (Bundesparteiobleute, abbreviated as CP) of the ÖVP party and the right bar shows the corresponding make-up of the Austrian government at that time. The red (SPÖ) and black (ÖVP) colours correspond to which party led the federal government (Bundesregierung, abbreviated as Govern.). The last names of the respective Chancellors are shown, with the Roman numeral standing for the cabinets.

ImageSize = width:400 height:530

PlotArea = width:350 height:450 left:50 bottom:50

Legend = columns:3 left:50 top:25 columnwidth:50

DateFormat = yyyy

Period = from:1945 till:2023

TimeAxis = orientation:vertical

ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:5 start:1945

1. there is no automatic collision detection,
2. so shift texts up or down manually to avoid overlap

Colors =

id:ÖVP value:gray(0.25) legend:ÖVP

id:SPÖ value:red legend:SPÖ

id:independent value:gray(0.85) legend:independent

1. id:FPÖ value:blue legend:FPÖ

Define $dx = 25 # shift text to right side of bar

Define $dy = -4 # adjust height

PlotData =

bar:CP color:red width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:S

from:1945 till:1945 shift:($dx,1) color:ÖVP text:Leopold Kunschak

from:1945 till:1952 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Leopold Figl

from:1952 till:1960 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Julius Raab

from:1960 till:1963 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Alfons Gorbach

from:1963 till:1970 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Josef Klaus

from:1970 till:1971 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Hermann Withalm

from:1971 till:1975 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Karl Schleinzer

from:1975 till:1979 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Josef Taus

from:1979 till:1989 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Alois Mock

from:1989 till:1991 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Josef Riegler

from:1991 till:1995 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Erhard Busek

from:1995 till:2007 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Wolfgang Schüssel

from:2007 till:2008 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Wilhelm Molterer

from:2008 till:2011 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Josef Pröll

from:2011 till:2014 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text: Michael Spindelegger

from:2014 till:2017 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text: Reinhold Mitterlehner

from:2017 till:end shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text: Sebastian Kurz

from:2021 till:end shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text: Karl Nehammer

bar:Govern. color:red width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:7

from:1945 till:1946 shift:($dx,-2) color:SPÖ text:Renner

from:1946 till:1949 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Figl I

from:1949 till:1952 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Figl II

from:1952 till:1953 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Figl III

from:1953 till:1956 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Raab I

from:1956 till:1959 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Raab II

from:1959 till:1960 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Raab III

from:1960 till:1961 shift:($dx,-2) color:ÖVP text:Raab IV

from:1961 till:1963 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Gorbach I

from:1963 till:1964 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Gorbach II

from:1964 till:1966 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Klaus I

from:1966 till:1970 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Klaus II

from:1970 till:1971 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Kreisky I

from:1971 till:1975 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Kreisky II

from:1975 till:1979 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Kreisky III

from:1979 till:1983 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Kreisky IV

from:1983 till:1986 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Sinowatz

from:1986 till:1987 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Vranitzky I

from:1987 till:1990 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Vranitzky II

from:1990 till:1994 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Vranitzky III

from:1994 till:1996 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Vranitzky IV

from:1996 till:1997 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Vranitzky V

from:1997 till:2000 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Klima

from:2000 till:2003 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Schüssel I

from:2003 till:2007 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Schüssel II

from:2007 till:2008 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Gusenbauer

from:2008 till:2016 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Faymann

from:2016 till:2017 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Kern

from:2017 till:2019 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Kurz I

from:2019 till:2020 shift:($dx,$dy) color:independent text:Bierlein

from:2020 till:2021 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Kurz II

from:2021 till:2021 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Schallenberg

from:2021 till:end shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Nehammer

== See also ==

{{Portal|Austria|Conservatism|Politics}}

• Politics of Austria

{{Notelist}}

{{Reflist|35em}}

• {{cite book|first=Dieter A.|last=Binder|chapter='Rescuing the Christian Occident': The People's Party in Austria|editor-first1=Michael|editor-last1=Gehler|editor-first2=Wolfram|editor-last2=Kaiser|title=Christian Democracy in Europe since 1945|publisher=Routledge|year=2004|isbn=0-7146-5662-3|pages=121–134}}
• {{cite book|first=Franz|last=Fallend|chapter=The Rejuvenation of an 'Old Party'? Christian Democracy in Austria|editor1=Steven Van Hecke|editor-first2=Emmanuel|editor-last2=Gerard|title=Christian Democratic Parties in Europe Since the End of the Cold War|publisher=Leuven University Press|year=2004|isbn=90-5867-377-4|pages=79–104}}

{{Commons category}}

• {{Official website}} {{in lang|de}}
• [http://www.photoglobe.info/ebooks/austria/cstudies_austria_0138.html Austrian People's Party Country Studies]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110720094641/http://www.epp.eu/countryPg.asp?cid=1 Austrian People's Party] at the European People's Party website

{{European People's Party}}

{{International Democracy Union}}

{{Austrian political parties}}

{{Authority control}}

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