Politicians from mainstream parties across Europe have called on voters to shun the far right in this week’s European elections after Austria’s vice-chancellor resigned over a video sting that showed him offering public contracts in exchange for financial and campaign backing.

Heinz-Christian Strache stepped down on Saturday after the footage emerged. Hours later, Austria’s chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, announced snap elections, ending the 18-month ruling coalition between his centre-right Austrian People’s party (ÖVP) and Strache’s far-right Freedom party (FPÖ).

The video showed the vice-chancellor proposing to trade government contracts for party donations and favourable media coverage with a woman posing as the wealthy niece of a Russian energy billionaire. He acknowledged the video was “catastrophic” but denied doing anything illegal.

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Centrist leaders across the continent made clear they hoped the repercussions of Strache’s downfall would make themselves felt beyond Austria in the European parliament elections, from 23-26 May, in which populist, nationalist and far-right parties are forecast to make gains.

The Freedom party is a key member of an alliance of European nationalist parties led by Matteo Salvini of Italy’s League party, who held an inaugural mass rally in Milan on Saturday with the National Rally party of France’s Marine Le Pen and Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

“A few months ago, Marine Le Pen was singing the praises of Heinz-Christian Strache, saying how formidable he was,” France’s economy minister, Bruno Le Maire, said. “He has been forced to resign. We find out why: he was caught trying to sell his services to foreign forces. Behind this nationalist movement is a submission to foreign forces.”

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, sharply criticised “politicians for sale”, saying the EU was facing “populist movements that in many areas are contemptuous of European values, who want to destroy the Europe of our values. We have to stand up to this decisively.”

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The scandal appeared to mark the end of Kurz’s widely criticised experiment at dealing with a successful far-right party by bringing it into the fold and building an alliance, rather than trying to ostracise it at the risk of alienating its voters.

“It’s long been known that rightwing populists destabilise our democracy,” Germany’s Socialist justice minister, Katarina Barley, tweeted. “Sebastian Kurz and the ÖVP brought them into government … The Strache case is a warning to all conservatives: do not work with far-right populists.”



It could also prove a setback for Europe’s resurgent far right. Strache’s obvious eagerness to embrace corruption stands in stark contrast to the “drain the swamp” rhetoric populists routinely deploy in their attempts to portray politics as a battle between decent ordinary people and a venal elite.

The Austrian vice-chancellor’s evident failings could make it more difficult for far-right leaders such as Salvini and Le Pen to present their parties as respectable, just slightly more rightwing alternatives to the established centre-right.

Initially, the far-right populists sought to downplay the incident. The AfD leader, Jörg Meuthen, dismissed it as an “internal issue”, while the spokesman for the German party’s parliamentary group, Christian Lueth, described it in a now-deleted tweet as a “pseudo-scandal”.

But while neither Salvini nor Le Pen addressed the Austrian scandal directly, it has at the very least given their opponents some much-needed ammunition days before the elections.

Strache’s behaviour, said Michael Schickhofer of Austria’s Social Democrats, “is symbolic … We can be sure this is just the tip of the iceberg.” István Ujhelyi, a Hungarian Socialist MEP, said Strache was “the first domino” to fall: “Next up are Salvini, Le Pen, Orbán and the rest of Moscow’s far-right puppets.”

A German TV commentator, Christian Nitsche, said the scandal could show that populists were not invincible. If Austria rejected the far right it would “probably not yet be a turning point on Europe’s wrong path – but a sign of hope that a first country has the strength to turn away from anti-democratic politicians and parties”, he said.