As polls draw close, Austrian rightists want Turkey, Israel out of EU

Jun 4, 2009, 17:53 GMT

Vienna - Austria's far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) on Thursday renewed its call not to let Turkey and Israel join the European Union, as the party that dominated the European parliamentary election campaign held its final rally in Vienna.

Hundreds of people cheered as party leader Heinz-Christian Strache defended his slogan that calls for keeping the 'Occident in Christian Hands.'

Addressing his political opponents who have blasted Strache's anti-foreigner campaign, he said: 'Just in whose hands do you want to see our European occident?'

The FPOe has been forecast to win between 14 and 17 per cent of the votes when Austrians cast their ballots Sunday, more than double from 6 per cent in 2004.

Andreas Moelzer, known as the party's chief intellectual, is the party's front-runner and currently only representative in the European Parliament.

Although the FPOe is likely to come in third behind the parties of the country's ruling coalition, the Social Democratic Party and the centre-right People's Party, it has so far set the agenda and has drawn sharp criticsm from Austrian parties and from abroad.

German European member of parliament Martin Schulz, the head of the European parliament's group of socialists, was quoted by Thursday's German Financial Times as saying that the FPOe's campaign 'speaks the language of the Third Reich,' a reference to Nazi Germany.

The controversy has heated up to a point where the FPOe's Deputy President of the national Parliament, Martin Graf, has been asked to resign by other parties after his spat with the leader of Vienna's Jewish community.

The far-right party has also campaigned against Israel joining the EU, although such a move is not being debated within the union.

'We don't want to be drawn into the Middle Eastern conflict,' Strache said during the rally. 'We have no business there, except as visitors or tourists.'

During his hour-long speech, Strache also suggested that crime was on the rise in Austria after borders with Eastern European countries had been opened under the Schengen agreement.

Pollsters see the Social Democratic Party and the People's Party as competing head-to-head, with most surveys placing them slightly below 30 per cent.

The eurosceptic independent Hans-Peter Martin is one of FPO's strongest rivals, as he is forecast to collect between 12 and 15 per cent of the ballots.