How political feuds overshadowed EU election for the Austrian Greens

6 months ago 29

Austria’s Greens have been contending with attacks against their lead candidate Lena Schilling, based on leaked chats and statements from former friends and allies, which the party says are orchestrated by left-wing rivals.

Austria’s Greens officially opted for 23-year-old activist Schilling as their lead candidate for the European elections.

After multiple revelations and leaked private chats were published in Austrian media, casting doubts on her character, Schilling announced earlier this week: “I’ve reached the point where I’ve had enough.”

The day before, the centre-left leaning newspaper der Standard reported, based on leaked private chats, that Schilling had allegedly planned to join the far-left GUE/NGL group in the European Parliament instead of the Greens, if elected.

Once confirmed by the Greens as a candidate, the party “can’t do anything anymore, mwahahaha”, Schilling apparently wrote to a friend, the newspaper said. In other messages, the Greens’ lead candidate confessed that she had “never hated anyone as much” as the party she is running for.

Schilling, who hails from left-wing circles in the upper crust of Vienna, denied the allegations and denounced friends and allies who had struggled with her candidacy for the Greens.

“The press was fed with half-truths and spin by people who were against my candidacy from the beginning,” she told journalists on Wednesday (22 May).

While Schilling is not a member of the Austrian Greens and got the role as lead candidate thanks to her background as a climate activist, she announced she had now applied for party membership.

“I stand here today as one of the Greens.”

But there were also other revelations that put the Greens in an awkward position.

Der Standard reported in early May that Schilling was served a court-ordered cease-and-desist declaration to sign, being accused of spreading rumours about the partner of a close friend, whom she accused of domestic violence.

Media reports painted an image of a power-hungry activist linked to serious misconduct, based on conversations with some 50 people close to the Greens’ EU candidate.

The Greens’ party chief Helmut Kogler dismissed Der Standard‘s reporting as “anonymous farts” – a phrase he later retracted amid criticism by media figures.

Schilling highlighted that media reports casting doubt on her character “have nothing to do with politics”. The Greens took no action against their lead candidate and instead closed ranks around her.

“I am still 100% convinced: Lena Schilling is my EU lead candidate,” said Thomas Waitz at the time, chair of the European Greens and member of the European Parliament.

At that point, the voting lists were closed and a campaign centered around Schilling was already being rolled out.

The entire affair – the airing of private chats and the Greens’ lackadaisical reaction – were seen as an unfortunate novelty in Austrian politics, where election campaigns do not normally get this personal.

German weekly Die Zeit noted that something appears to have “shifted” in Vienna. Schilling herself spoke of a “broken taboo”.

A left-wing campaign?

According to the Austrian Greens’ secretary-general Olga Voglauer, the accusations against Schilling are driven by centre-left SPÖ and communist politicians, as well as industry and business lobby groups.

“This is damaging to us Greens,” she told the press, speaking alongside Schilling on 22 May.

Voglauer recalled the controversial “Silberstein affair”, when the SPÖ was betting on negative campaigning to discredit competitors during the 2017 general elections. She hinted that the SPÖ’s lead candidate, Andreas Schieder, was behind the campaign against the Greens, but later publicly apologised to Schieder.

The Greens’ polling figures have been stable at 8% for months, down six percentage points compared to their 2019 result. Support for the centre-left SPÖ is trending downwards towards 20%.

[Edited by Oliver Noyan/Aurélie Pugnet]