2019: Ibiza Affair

On 17 May 2019 at 6 pm, the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and Der Spiegel magazine posted excerpts from a video online showing two then Freedom Party (FPÖ) politicians, Heinz-Christian Strache and Johann Gudenus, in conversation with a woman claiming to be the niece of an oligarch. The recording, which lasts seven hours in total, had been made in secret at a finca in Ibiza, Spain, in summer 2017. In the video, Strache can be heard promising to award profitable government contracts, for example in road building, to those willing to aid his party's electoral success through buying up media outlets. They also discuss the possibilities for making donations to political parties without attracting the scrutiny of the Court of Audit.

At the time the video went public, the FPÖ had been the junior partner in a coalition government with the ÖVP for around half a year. Less than 24 hours after the video was released, Vice Chancellor Strache resigned and Gudenus stepped down from all political offices. A short time later, the ÖVP withdrew its confidence in prominent FPÖ ministers, prompting all FPÖ members of the government to resign in protest. The ÖVP made new appointments to the ministries.

Just one week later, a vote of no confidence in parliament against a federal government was successful for the first time ever. Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen appointed an interim government made up of experts and civil servants. Brigitte Bierlein became Austria’s first ever female federal chancellor. The elections in September 2019 and subsequent coalition negotiations resulted in the Green Party’s participation in government at the federal level for the first time—the new coalition was sworn in at the start of 2020.

In the European elections held just nine days after the release of the Ibiza video, Heinz-Christian Strache gained 45,000 preference votes and therefore secured a seat in the EU parliament. Under pressure from the new FPÖ leadership, Strache declined to take up the seat and made sure that his wife Philippa was placed high on the party list in the general election. She was later barred from the FPÖ and remained in parliament as an unaffiliated, “wild member”. On 15 May 2020, shortly before the anniversary of the “Ibiza Affair”, Heinz-Christian Strache presented his new party. Parliament has set up an “Ibiza enquiry commission”.