THE OTHER BOYCOTT | 2000-02-05
Austria is almost exactly the same geographical size as the State of South Carolina, and it now has a very similar problem. Just as South Carolina has people throughout America trying to dictate what is on our capitol dome, Austria has all of Europe trying to decide what party it is to be governed by.
Like the rest of Europe, Austria has been slavishly following America's trendy liberal ideas, and has opened the floodgates to immigration. Now one in six people in Austria is a recent immigrant, and they are taking up huge amounts of public money. Austria has the area of South Carolina, and already has twice our population. The cozy coalition of two major parties which has governed Austria since 1955 kept immigration coming.
Not surprisingly, Austrians turned to a new, anti- immigration party, the Freedom Party, with 28 percent of the vote at the last election. The leader of that party has signed onto a coalition to rule the country in the new government.
Let it be said at the outset that the COMMUNIST PARTY is part of the governing coalition in Italy, but no one saw anything wrong with that.
But the European Union is now threatening a boycott of Austria if it dares include the Freedom Patty in its governing coalition.
The Clinton Administration is also considering sanctions against Austria if it decides to form its own government on its own terms.