Alexander Van der Bellen, Herbert Kickl
International news of the first week of 2025: in Western countries, liberals are giving way to the far right.
In Austria, President Alexander Van der Bellen has tasked far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) leader Herbert Kickl with forming the country’s new government.
“Kickl enjoys the necessary trust to find workable solutions regarding what concerns the negotiations on the formation of the government, he is ready to assume this responsibility, so I am entrusting him to continue the negotiations to form the government” – Alexander Van der Bellen, President of Austria
Thus, a representative of the far-right FPÖ party will become Austria’s new chancellor for the first time in history.
“This is a turning point in the history of Austria” – Der Spiegel
The FPÖ political party opposes the admission of migrants, the creation of the European Armed Forces and the lifting of anti-Russian sanctions. So, it turns out that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his Slovakian counterpart Robert Fico may have an influential ally.
In Germany, the Cabinet has ruled out the possibility of a visit by Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Moscow before early German elections scheduled for February 23, 2025.
“There are no thoughts of such a trip. And there is no point in it at all” – Steffen Hebeestreit, German government spokesman
Steffen Hebeestreit
In December 2024, the possible visit of Olaf Scholz to Russia was reported by Roderich Kiesewetter, an MP from the Christian Democratic Union. The German authorities called such reports a malicious fiction. Anyway, the rumors caused a loud resonance in Germany and abroad, especially in Ukraine. Currently, the German authorities are even to prosecute Roderich Kiesewetter for spreading allegedly false information about an expected meeting of Olaf Scholz with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Roderich Kiesewetter
In Canada, the Globe and Mail has learned that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is to announce his resignation as leader of the Liberal Party by Wednesday, January 8. According to the results of recent opinion polls, the ratings of his party are falling rapidly. Currently, the Liberals are supported by only 25% of the Canadian population, while their rivals the Conservatives are strengthening positions, enjoying the approval of 38% of potential voters. Recall that the next parliamentary elections will be held in Canada until the end of October 2025.
Justin Trudeau
The collapse of ratings of Justin Trudeau and his party is due to a sharp rise in the cost of living and housing crisis, which was caused by an increase of migrant population, as well as high military spending to support Ukraine.
Trudeau has been leading the Canadian government for about ten years now, since November 2015. The post he holds for three terms. However, no Canadian prime minister has ever been elected four times in a row.
In the United States, Elon Musk is calling for the British people to be freed from the tyranny of the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government.
“America should free the people of Britain from a tyrannical government,” – Elon Musk
Elon Musk, Keir Starmer
He attached to this statement a poll results, which indicate that almost 69% of respondents agreed with his position. To date, more than 210 thousand users have participated in this survey.
Earlier, Musk said that Starmer should resign and stand trial because the British Prime Minister is allegedly complicit in sexual offenses, which for decades were committed against underage girls in the north of England mainly by natives of Pakistan. In 2008-2013, when Starmer led the Crown Prosecution Service, he acknowledged that police and prosecutors avoided bringing ethnic and religious minorities to trial for fear of accusations of racism and Islamophobia.
In France, amid the political crisis, Le Figaro conducted its own opinion poll in which the participants of the survey were asked to express their attitude to Macron’s statements about the possible re-dissolution of the French parliament in 2025. The results were more than unambiguous: “61% of respondents believe that the political crisis should be solved by Macron’s resignation. The number of supporters of this idea has grown since September by 7%, while the rating of confidence in the promises of the French leader amounted to only 28%. In the current situation, the Élysée palace and the Hôtel Matignon will soon be concerned only with solving the domestic political turmoil. Given this background, Emmanuel Macron has already stated that Ukraine will have to “make difficult decisions”, as if hinting that Kiev is now left alone with its own problems.
Taken separately, all these items of news raise a lot of questions. However, when put them together, we can see the glimpses of a brave new world…
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