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May 18, 2019 Political earthquake in Vienna 8 days after the vote for the European Championships. Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz excludes further collaboration with the vice-chancellor and FPÖ leader Heinz-Christian Strache. The DPA reports. The Registrar will hold a press conference later. The decision came the day after the publication of a compromising video for the vice-chancellor.

The storm in the majority of Austrian government was triggered by images taken with a hidden camera by Der Spiegel and Sueddeutsche Zeitung. They account for a meeting in Ibiza with a self-styled niece of a Russian oligarch, Aljona Makarowa, who offered to invest around 250 million euros to acquire shares in the Austrian press, in particular from the newspaper "Kronen Zeitung", with money in black unknown origin. "If you acquire the Kronen Zeitung three weeks before the election and put us first, we can talk about everything," Strache says in the video. The woman was actually a groomer and the encounter in Ibiza was a trap.

In the video documenting 7 hours of meeting, the Austrian vice-chancellor and his right-hand man Johann Gudens indulge in praise of Viktor Orban's system of controlling the press. Among the investment options proposed to the Russian one speaks also of financing the party the FPÖ - the vice-chancellor's party - with "questionable" forms of financing, that is passing through circles and associations in order to get around the Court of Auditors and the Austrian laws on party financing. Strache and Gudens had confirmed the meeting at Der Spiegel and Sz, recalling "an atmosphere of celebration and drinking".

Between Kurz and Strache a clarification meeting in the Chancellery is expected soon. It is still not clear if we go towards the resignation of the vice-chancellor, with a replacement and the continuation of the experience of government, or towards the end of the majority.



Press hypothesizes resignation vice-chancellor
The Austrian press hypothesizes the resignation of Heinz Christian Strache as Austrian vice-chancellor. At this point, two scenarios. Or a reshuffle, with the FPÖ replacing Strache with Norbert Hofer, Alexander Van der Bellen's challenger in the last presidential elections, or a return to the polls. Popular chancellor Sebastian Kurz could be tempted by this second hypothesis, also because the most recent polls give his party a steep rise.