The Austrian People's Party (german: Österreichische Volkspartei , ÖVP ) is a Christian-democratic and

liberal-conservative Liberal conservatism is a political ideology combining conservative policies with liberal stances, especially on economic issues but also on social and ethical matters, representing a brand of political conservatism strongly influenced by libe ...

political party in Austria. Since December 2021, the party has been led provisionally by Karl Nehammer. It is currently the largest party in the National Council, with 71 of the 183 seats, and won 37.5% of votes cast in the 2019 legislative election. It holds seats in all nine state legislatures, and is part of government in seven, of which it leads six. The ÖVP is a member of the International Democrat Union and the

European People's Party The European People's Party (EPP) is a European political party with Christian-democratic, conservative, and liberal-conservative member parties. A transnational organisation, it is composed of other political parties. Founded by primarily ...

. It sits with the EPP group in the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the Legislature, legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven Institutions of the European Union, institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and in ...

; of Austria's 19

MEPs A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, it ...

, 7 are members of the ÖVP. An unofficial successor to the Christian Social Party of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the ÖVP was founded immediately following the re-establishment of the

Republic of Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine States of Austria, states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, th ...

in 1945. Since then, it has been one of the two traditional major parties in Austria, alongside the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ). It was the most popular party until 1970, and has traditionally governed in a

grand coalition A grand coalition is an arrangement in a multi-party parliamentary system in which the two largest political parties of opposing political ideologies unite in a coalition government. The term is most commonly used in countries where there are ...

with the SPÖ. It was the senior partner in grand coalitions from 1945 to 1966 and the junior partner from 1986 to 2000 and 2007–2017. The ÖVP also briefly governed alone from 1966 to 1970. After the 1999 election, the party formed a

coalition A coalition is a group formed when two or more people or groups temporarily work together to achieve a common goal. The term is most frequently used to denote a formation of power in political or economical spaces. Formation According to ''A Gui ...

with the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) until 2003, when a

with the FPÖ splinter Alliance for the Future of Austria was formed, which lasted until 2007. The party underwent a change in its image after Sebastian Kurz became chairman, changing its colour from the traditional

black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ha ...

to turquoise, and adopting the alternate name The New People's Party (german: Die neue Volkspartei). It became the largest party after the 2017 election, and formed a

coalition government A coalition government is a form of government in which political parties cooperate to form a government. The usual reason for such an arrangement is that no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an election, an atypical outcome in ...

with the FPÖ. This collapsed eighteen months later, leading to the 2019 election, after which the ÖVP formed a new coalition with The Greens.

History

The ÖVP is the successor of the Christian Social Party, a staunchly conservative movement founded in 1893 by Karl Lueger, mayor of

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

and highly controversial

right-wing populist Right-wing populism, also called national populism and right-wing nationalism, is a political ideology that combines right-wing politics and populist rhetoric and themes. Its rhetoric employs anti-elitist sentiments, opposition to the Establi ...

. Most of the members of the party during its founding belonged to the former Fatherland Front, which was led by chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, also a member of the Christian Social Party before the

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germa ...

. While still sometimes honored by ÖVP members for resisting

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...

, the regime built by Dollfuss was authoritarian in nature and has been dubbed as Austrofascism. In its present form, the ÖVP was established immediately after the restoration of Austria's independence in 1945 and it has been represented in both the Federal Assembly ever since. In terms of Federal Assembly seats, the ÖVP has consistently been the strongest or second-strongest party and as such it has led or at least been a partner in most Austria's federal cabinets. In the 1945 Austrian legislative election, the ÖVP won a

landslide victory A landslide victory is an election result in which the victorious candidate or party wins by an overwhelming margin. The term became popular in the 1800s to describe a victory in which the opposition is "buried", similar to the way in which a geol ...

in Austria's first postwar election, winning almost half the popular vote and an absolute majority in the legislature. However, memories of the hyper-partisanship that had plagued the First Republic prompted the ÖVP to maintain the

with the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) and the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) that had governed the country since the restoration of independence in early 1945. The ÖVP remained the senior partner in a coalition with the SPÖ until 1966 and governed alone from 1966 to 1970. It reentered the government in 1986, but has never been completely out of power since the restoration of Austrian independence in 1945 due to a longstanding tradition that all major interest groups were to be consulted on policy. After the

1999 Austrian legislative election Parliamentary elections were held in Austria on 3 October 1999. Although the Social Democratic Party remained the largest party in the National Council, a right-wing coalition government was formed by the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and the ...

, several months of negotiations ended in early 2000 when the ÖVP formed a

with the right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) led by Jörg Haider. The FPÖ had won just a few hundred more votes than the ÖVP, but was considered far too controversial to lead a government. The ÖVP's Wolfgang Schüssel became

Chancellor Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...

—the first ÖVP Chancellor of Austria since 1970. This caused widespread outrage in Europe and the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...

imposed informal diplomatic sanctions on Austria, the first time that it imposed sanctions on a member state. Bilateral relations were frozen (including contacts and meetings at an inter-governmental level) and Austrian candidates would not be supported for posts in European Union international offices. Austria threatened to veto all applications by countries for European Union membership until the sanctions were lifted. A few months later, these sanctions were dropped as a result of a fact-finding mission by three former European prime ministers, the so-called "three wise men". The 2002 legislative election resulted in a landslide victory (42.27% of the vote) for the ÖVP under Schüssel. Haider's FPÖ was reduced to 10.16% of the vote. At the state level, the ÖVP has long dominated the rural states of

Lower Austria Lower Austria (german: Niederösterreich; Austro-Bavarian: ''Niedaöstareich'', ''Niedaestareich'') is one of the nine states of Austria, located in the northeastern corner of the country. Since 1986, the capital of Lower Austria has been Sankt P ...

Upper Austria Upper Austria (german: Oberösterreich ; bar, Obaöstareich) is one of the nine states or of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as the other Austrian states of Lower Austria, Styria, an ...

Salzburg Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Austro-Bavarian) is the fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the Roman settlement of ''Iuvavum''. Salzburg was founded ...

Styria Styria (german: Steiermark ; Serbo-Croatian and sl, ; hu, Stájerország) is a state (''Bundesland'') in the southeast of Austria. With an area of , Styria is the second largest state of Austria, after Lower Austria. Styria is bordered ...

Tyrol Tyrol (; historically the Tyrole; de-AT, Tirol ; it, Tirolo) is a historical region in the Alps - in Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Emp ...

and Vorarlberg. It is less popular in the

city state A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world since the dawn of history, including cities such as ...

of Vienna and in the rural, but less strongly Catholic states of Burgenland and

Carinthia Carinthia (german: Kärnten ; sl, Koroška ) is the southernmost Austrian state, in the Eastern Alps, and is noted for its mountains and lakes. The main language is German. Its regional dialects belong to the Southern Bavarian group. Carin ...

. In 2004, it lost its plurality in the State of Salzburg, where they kept its result in seats (14) in 2009. In 2005, it lost its plurality in

for the first time. After the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ) split from the FPÖ in 2005, the BZÖ replaced the FPÖ in the government coalition which lasted until 2007. Austria for the first time had a government containing of a party that was founded during the parliamentary term. In the

2006 Austrian legislative election Legislative elections were held in Austria on 1 October 2006 to elect the 23rd National Council, the lower house of Austria's bicameral parliament. The governing Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) suffered substantial losses and was unexpectedly over ...

, the ÖVP were defeated and after much negotiations agreed to become junior partner in a grand coalition with the SPÖ, with new party chairman

Wilhelm Molterer Wilhelm Molterer (born 14 May 1955 in Steyr) is an Austrian politician who currently serves as the Managing Director of the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI). Between 2011 and 2015 he was the Vice-President and member of the Manageme ...

as Finance Minister and

Vice-Chancellor A chancellor is a leader of a college or university, usually either the executive or ceremonial head of the university or of a university campus within a university system. In most Commonwealth and former Commonwealth nations, the chancellor ...

under SPÖ leader

Alfred Gusenbauer Alfred Gusenbauer (born 8 February 1960) is an Austrian politician who until 2008 spent his entire professional life as an employee of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) or as a parliamentary representative. He headed the SPÖ from 20 ...

, who became Chancellor. The 2008 Austrian legislative election saw the ÖVP lose 15 seats, with a further 8.35% decrease in its share of the vote. However, the ÖVP won the largest share of the vote (30.0%) in the

2009 European Parliament election The 2009 European Parliament election was held in the 27 member states of the European Union (EU) between 4 and 7 June 2009. A total of 736 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) were elected to represent some 500 million Europeans, making th ...

with 846,709 votes, although their number of seats remained the same.

Ideology and Platform

The ÖVP is described as

Christian democratic Christian democracy (sometimes named Centrist democracy) is a political ideology that emerged in 19th-century Europe under the influence of Catholic social teaching and neo-Calvinism. It was conceived as a combination of modern democrati ...

, conservative, and

. The party has also been described as a

catch-all party A big tent party, or catch-all party, is a term used in reference to a political party's policy of permitting or encouraging a broad spectrum of views among its members. This is in contrast to other kinds of parties, which defend a determined ...

of the

centre-right Centre-right politics lean to the right of the political spectrum, but are closer to the centre. From the 1780s to the 1880s, there was a shift in the Western world of social class structure and the economy, moving away from the nobility and ...

, in the vein of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany. For most of its existence, the ÖVP has explicitly defined itself as

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

and anti-socialist, with the ideals of subsidiarity as defined by the encyclical '' Quadragesimo anno'' and

decentralisation Decentralization or decentralisation is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those regarding planning and decision making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group. Conce ...

. For the first election after World War II, the ÖVP presented itself as the Austrian Party (german: die österreichische Partei), was anti-Marxist and regarded itself as the Party of the center (german: link=no, Partei der Mitte). The ÖVP consistently held power—either alone or in so-called black–red coalition with the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ)—until 1970, when the SPÖ formed a minority government with the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). The ÖVP's economic policies during the era generally upheld a social market economy. The party's campaign for the 2017 legislative election under the party chairman Sebastian Kurz was dominated by a rightward shift in policy which included a promised crackdown on

illegal immigration Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwar ...

and a fight against

political Islam Political Islam is any interpretation of Islam as a source of political identity and action. It can refer to a wide range of individuals and/or groups who advocate the formation of state and society according to their understanding of Islamic pri ...

, making it more similar to the program of the FPÖ, the party that Kurz chose as his coalition partner after the ÖVP won the election. The party underwent a change in its image after Kurz became chairman, changing its colour from the traditional

to turquoise, and adopting the name The new People's Party (german: Die neue Volkspartei).

Chairpersons since 1945

The chart below shows a timeline of ÖVP chairpersons and the

Chancellors of Austria The chancellor of the Republic of Austria () is the head of government of the Republic of Austria. The position corresponds to that of Prime Minister in several other parliamentary democracies. Current officeholder is Karl Nehammer of the Aust ...

. The left black bar shows all the chairpersons (''Bundesparteiobleute'', abbreviated as CP) of the ÖVP party and the right bar shows the corresponding make-up of the Austrian government at that time. The red (SPÖ) and black (ÖVP) colours correspond to which party led the federal government (''Bundesregierung'', abbreviated as ''Govern.''). The last names of the respective Chancellors are shown, with the Roman numeral standing for the cabinets. ImageSize = width:400 height:530 PlotArea = width:350 height:450 left:50 bottom:50 Legend = columns:3 left:50 top:25 columnwidth:50 DateFormat = yyyy Period = from:1945 till:2023 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:5 start:1945 # there is no automatic collision detection, # so shift texts up or down manually to avoid overlap Colors = id:ÖVP value:gray(0.25) legend:ÖVP id:SPÖ value:red legend:SPÖ id:independent value:gray(0.85) legend:independent # id:FPÖ value:blue legend:FPÖ Define $dx = 25 # shift text to right side of bar Define $dy = -4 # adjust height PlotData = bar:CP color:red width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:S from:1945 till:1945 shift:($dx,1) color:ÖVP text: Leopold Kunschak from:1945 till:1952 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text: Leopold Figl from:1952 till:1960 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:

Julius Raab Julius Raab (29 November 1891 – 8 January 1964) was a conservative Austrian politician, who served as Federal Chancellor of Austria from 1953 to 1961. Raab steered Allied-occupied Austria to independence, when he negotiated and signed the Austri ...

from:1960 till:1963 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text: Alfons Gorbach from:1963 till:1970 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text: Josef Klaus from:1970 till:1971 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text: Hermann Withalm from:1971 till:1975 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text: Karl Schleinzer from:1975 till:1979 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text: Josef Taus from:1979 till:1989 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text: Alois Mock from:1989 till:1991 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text: Josef Riegler from:1991 till:1995 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text: Erhard Busek from:1995 till:2007 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text: Wolfgang Schüssel from:2007 till:2008 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:

from:2008 till:2011 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text: Josef Pröll from:2011 till:2014 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:

Michael Spindelegger Michael Spindelegger (born 21 December 1959) is an Austrian politician. He served in the cabinet of Chancellor Werner Faymann as foreign minister of Austria from 2008 to 2013 and as finance minister from 2013 to 2014; additionally, he held the o ...

from:2014 till:2017 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text: Reinhold Mitterlehner from:2017 till:end shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text: Sebastian Kurz from:2021 till:end shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text: Karl Nehammer bar:Govern. color:red width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:7 from:1945 till:1946 shift:($dx,-2) color:SPÖ text:Renner from:1946 till:1949 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Figl I from:1949 till:1952 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Figl II from:1952 till:1953 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Figl III from:1953 till:1956 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Raab I from:1956 till:1959 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Raab II from:1959 till:1960 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Raab III from:1960 till:1961 shift:($dx,-2) color:ÖVP text:Raab IV from:1961 till:1963 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Gorbach I from:1963 till:1964 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Gorbach II from:1964 till:1966 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Klaus I from:1966 till:1970 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Klaus II from:1970 till:1971 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Kreisky I from:1971 till:1975 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Kreisky II from:1975 till:1979 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Kreisky III from:1979 till:1983 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Kreisky IV from:1983 till:1986 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Sinowatz from:1986 till:1987 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Vranitzky I from:1987 till:1990 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Vranitzky II from:1990 till:1994 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Vranitzky III from:1994 till:1996 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Vranitzky IV from:1996 till:1997 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Vranitzky V from:1997 till:2000 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Klima from:2000 till:2003 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Schüssel I from:2003 till:2007 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Schüssel II from:2007 till:2008 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Gusenbauer from:2008 till:2016 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Faymann from:2016 till:2017 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Kern from:2017 till:2019 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Kurz I from:2019 till:2020 shift:($dx,$dy) color:independent text:Bierlein from:2020 till:2021 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Kurz II from:2021 till:2021 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Schallenberg from:2021 till:end shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Nehammer

Election results

National Council

President

European Parliament

State Parliaments

Symbols

ÖVP-Logo (80er).svg, Logo used in the 1980s OVP.logo.png, Logo before 2017 Austrian People's Party logo.png, Logo with

flag A flag is a piece of fabric (most often rectangular or quadrilateral) with a distinctive design and colours. It is used as a symbol, a signalling device, or for decoration. The term ''flag'' is also used to refer to the graphic design empl ...

before 2017 Logo neue VP tuerkis.png, Turquoise variant of the text-logo since 2017

References

External links

*
Austrian People's Party Country StudiesAustrian People's Party
at the European People's Party website {{Authority control Austrian People's Party Liberal parties in Austria Conservative parties in Austria Liberal conservative parties Christian democratic parties in Europe Political parties in Austria Politics of Austria Articles which contain graphical timelines Pro-European political parties in Austria