Just one week before the European elections, a political bomb went off within the Austrian government, tearing the ruling centre-right coalition apart and forcing national elections to be called. German outlets Der Spiegel and Süddeutsche Zeitung hpublished a video showing vice chancellor Heinz Christian Strache, head of the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), in a villa in Ibiza negotiating with a woman posing as the niece of a Russian oligarch.

In exchange for vast sums of money to be invested in Austria, Strache, heavily drunk, promises “overpriced” government contracts. He also suggests that his would-be partner buy Austria’s biggest daily newspaper, Kronenzeitung, which would then support his party. “We’ll fire a few people and put in some of our own”, he is heard saying, “we will do it like Orbán“. Hungary’s leader Victor Orbán has managed, with the help of local oligarchs, to gain control over the entire Hungarian media scene.

The “Ibiza scandal” has shaken the country. Thousands gathered in front of the Vienna chancellery, demanding an end to the far right’s participation in the government. Conservative chancellor Sebastian Kurz had no choice but to accept the resignation of his vice-chancellor, who as a young man had taken part in neo-Nazi war games, and end the coalition with the FPÖ. “Enough is enough“ he said, referring to a string of incidents involving FPÖ-figures making racist remarks and associating with neo-Nazi groups.

In the European parliament, the FPÖ is part of the “Europe of Nations and Freedom”-bloc, together with Matteo Salvini’s Lega and Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National. Like the French and Italian parties, the FPÖ is friendly with Vladimir Putin and even has a cooperation agreement with Putin’s party, United Russia. Strache and his friends also pay frequent visits to Hungary’s Victor Orbán, whose Fidesz party is formally still a member of the conservative European People’s Party (EVP), though it’s membership has been suspended.

In the run up to the EU elections, the ÖVP is the uncontested leader. This party, “the Blacks”, has traditionally been the political home of business people, farmers and country dwellers with a Roman Catholic background. In 2016, the then 30-year-old Sebastian Kurz and his friends took over the party, changed its colour from clerical black to bright turquoise, and promptly won the elections on a promise of change and reform, joining forces with the right-wing FPÖ instead of it’s long-time partner, the Social Democrats (SPÖ). Accordingly, the country has since moved a good deal to the right.

Der Standard. She has written this column for VoxEurop and “27 Voices for Europe”.