Austrian People's Party
오스트리아 국민당
A conservative Austrian party founded in Vienna in April 1945 and, with the Social Democrats (SPÖ), one of the two traditional major parties of the Second Republic. Starting as the unofficial successor of the Christian Social Party, it presented itself as a broad bourgeois people's party combining Catholic social teaching, conservatism and liberalism. It provided the federal chancellor from 1945 to 1970, from 2000 to 2007 and since 2017.
In depth
The ÖVP was founded on 17 April 1945 at the Schottenstift in Vienna by Leopold Kunschak (chairman), Leopold Figl, Julius Raab and others as the unofficial successor of the Christian Social Party. The German source says that, drawing lessons from the First Republic's end in Austrofascism and Nazism, it differed from its predecessor by committing itself to parliamentary democracy and to the Austrian nation. The party was built on a structure of 'leagues' (Bünde) such as the workers' and employees' league, the farmers' league and the business league.
In the National Council election of 1945 it won an absolute majority with 49.8 percent and 85 seats, yet Leopold Figl formed a concentration government with the Social Democrats and the Communists. Julius Raab became party chairman in 1953 and, with finance minister Reinhard Kamitz, pursued the social-market policy known as the 'Raab–Kamitz course'; on 15 May 1955, under the Raab–Schärf government, the State Treaty with the four occupying powers was signed. From 1966 to 1970 Josef Klaus led the Second Republic's first single-party government.
After losing first place to Bruno Kreisky's Social Democrats in 1970 the party spent seventeen years in opposition. Alois Mock, chairman from 1979, pursued party reform and in January 1987 agreed a grand coalition with Franz Vranitzky that made membership of the European Community a central government aim. In 1989 Mock handed the chairmanship and vice-chancellorship to Josef Riegler, and Austria joined the European Union on 1 January 1995.
According to the English source the party was the senior partner in grand coalitions from 1945 to 1966 and the junior partner from 1986 to 2000 and 2007 to 2017; after the 1999 election it governed with the Freedom Party (FPÖ) and from 2003 until 2007 with its splinter, the Alliance for the Future of Austria. The German source says it styled itself 'the new People's Party' from 2017 to 2022, and that Leopold Figl, Julius Raab, Wolfgang Schüssel and Sebastian Kurz were among its federal chancellors.