Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen turns 80 today, Thursday – but the head of state does not want to celebrate it in a big way. The former leader of the Green Party has been in office for seven years. The first term in office was particularly turbulent due to the government crisis resulting from the Ibiza affair.
Van der Bellen always celebrates his birthday on a small scale, and he does not want to make an exception for his big birthday, the presidential office said last week.
Work and a drink
That’s why he goes to work as usual. A small private party is planned for that evening, with a birthday program on ORF television. At the office, the Federal President wants to briefly toast his birthday with his employees.
It can be said that the year 2024 will be an important year for the Federal President. With the European elections in June and the National Council elections in September, guiding decisions must be made, as the center of power could shift to forces on the far-right political fringe.
This is exactly what Van der Bellen has always worried about and warned (for example at the Alpbach Forum) about the ‘agenda of the populists’ who sided with Russia and wanted to weaken the European community. For him, trust and cohesion have always been the counter program with which he won the first federal presidential elections against FPÖ exponent Norbert Hofer.
Long-distance duel against Kickl
To say the least, Van der Bellen has no friend in FPÖ chairman Herbert Kickl, whose party, according to surveys, could become the strongest in the National Council elections in the fall of 2024. A year ago, at the start of his second term in office , Van der Bellen again left open the question of whether he would swear in the FPÖ leader as chancellor or give him a mandate to form a government.
Van der Bellen said at the time that he would not “try to promote an anti-European party through my measures, a party that does not condemn the Russian war against Ukraine.” Kickl then insulted him as a “mummy in the Hofburg” and “senile”. At the FPÖ’s New Year’s meeting last weekend, the FPÖ leader reminded the president that “although he lives in the Hofburg, he is not an emperor.”
In addition to his pro-European stance and his calls to defend liberal democracy, Van der Bellen is also a constant warning when it comes to environmental policy. The climate emergency and the greenhouse effect have been scientifically proven: ‘How ignorant do you have to be, how far removed from nature, not to notice this?’ he recently asked in his New Year’s speech.
Van der Bellen is heading for a record
He repeatedly expressed solidarity with the concerns of young people campaigning for a planet that must remain habitable. “Anyone who still thinks they have a lot of time is making a historic mistake,” he also said to the Austrian federal government, in which his own former party is involved in addition to the ÖVP and the Greens.
As much as Van der Bellen feels solidarity with young people, he is no longer the youngest himself. With his birthday, he is already fifteen years past the legal retirement age, and when he reaches the end of his term in 2029 at the age of 85, he would be the oldest Austrian federal president ever.
The economics professor started his political career in 1994 when, recruited by Peter Pilz, he became a member of the National Council for the Greens. Before that he was a member of the SPÖ (from the mid-1970s).
Source: Krone
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
