Taking pride of place

Date: 25/06/1998

VIKTOR Klima is no rebel, but rather a man who has always tried to live up to the many expectations of his family, political friends and the general public.

In a telling answer to a journalist's questions, the Austrian chancellor once declared that he had “always wanted to do his job in such a way that the teacher or the boss would say: you are doing great”.

A history of extremely hard work and occasional toughness, coupled with an ability to get on well with almost anybody, led Klima first to the head of Austria's state-owned oil company ÖMV and from there to the top job in Austrian politics. Next week he will move centre stage in Europe when his country takes over the EU presidency.

Klima, who was born in Vienna in 1947 and is a keen yachtsman and book collector, belongs to that brand of can-do Social Democrat politicians who take visible pride in their managerial abilities and their pragmatic approach to the realities of social change.

Almost invariably dressed in a dark blue suit, a white shirt and a bright red tie (an outfit which intentionally associates a message of businesslike responsibility with the political colour of his party), the personable Klima is at his best when he works a crowd of party faithful or engages in a debating match with a political opponent.

His potential as a possible future party leader was conclusively demonstrated to the public and the leadership of the Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs (SPÖ) in 1995 by a television debate with Austria's right-wing maverick politician Jörg Haider.

The normally cool Haider, the most feared debater in Austrian political life, found it hard to resist Klima's aggressive rhetorical onslaught. For the first time in years, a politician from one of the mainstream parties had come near to beating the leader of the far-right Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ) at the one game in which Haider was believed to be second to none.

Klima's accession to the chancellorship in January 1997 was widely welcomed by a public which had grown somewhat tired of his increasingly aloof SPÖ predecessor Franz Vranitzky.

While Vranitzky, himself a worker's son, chose to live in one of Vienna's swankiest suburbs and liked to hobnob with bankers and industrialists, Klima lives in a modest house in Swechat, an industrial area with strong SPÖ connections.

His wife, who works as a teacher, has publicly praised Klima's modesty, his readiness to help with the housework and the simplicity of his tastes.

Klima, himself a schoolteacher's son, was born into a family with a commitment to Socialist policies as part of its heritage. As a child, he accompanied his father on night-time expeditions to stick SPÖ posters over the political propaganda of the party's opponents.

Throughout his career, Klima has never swerved from his dedication to the culture and the essential political principles of a party which has been the pivotal force of Austria's post-war politics.

Yet his twin credentials as a committed Socialist and a forceful moderniser of left-wing politics rest essentially on his long experience of working for ÖMV, Austria's largest oil company, which he joined in 1969.

His reputation as a workaholic capable of delivering 15 hours of steady work a day and as a loyal and efficient manager led Klima to the top of the company, where he managed to engineer a major restructuring without losing the support of the unions.

Klima's adroitness in cutting ÖMV's payroll by 3,000 workers without triggering a labour conflict attracted the attention of Chancellor Vranitzky, who lured the Social Democrat top manager into his cabinet in 1992.

Klima took over responsibility for transport and state industry, with a special mission to organise the sell-off of the country's bloated public companies.

Within three years, Klima managed to privatise most of the loss-making conglomerate Austrian industries and find a new strategic partner for his old employer ÖMV.

During the same period, as transport minister, he was tasked with tackling the difficult and politically highly sensitive task of negotiating a transit agreement with the European Union.

Klima's success in his first ministerial appointment, and his convincing television performance against Haider, led Vranitzky to offer him the prestigious job of finance minister after the country's national elections in December 1995.

Despite pursuing a rigorous course of budgetary consolidation designed to control the country's growing public deficit and enable Austria to join the first wave of single currency membership, Klima quickly established himself as one of his party's most popular politicians.

Surfing on a wave of public approval, he was seen as the natural and indeed the only choice for the country's leadership when Vranitzky decided to step down in January 1997 after more than ten years in office.

In his policies as chancellor, Klima has revealed himself to be a reliable and steady advocate of further political integration in Europe, albeit one who has been known to tailor his statements to his audience.

One of his battle cries has been the call for greater coordination of EU member states' employment policies - an issue which he hopes to make the focus of the December summit of Union leaders in Vienna.

In recent interviews with foreign journalists, Klima has expounded his view that the leap into economic and monetary union on 1 January 1999 will strongly increase the pressure for more cooperation on issues such as taxation, economic and trade policy, and will even “improve our Common Foreign and Security Policy”.

Although he is rumoured to be personally in favour of NATO membership for his country, as SPÖ leader Klima remains officially opposed to joining the alliance, in contrast to the stance adopted by the SPÖ's conservative government ally the Österreichische Volkspartei (ÖVP).

On the key issue of the EU's enlargement to central and eastern Europe, Klima, like most mainstream politicians in Austria, is treading exceedingly carefully.

While acknowledging the importance of the Union embracing its former Communist neighbours, Klima frequently points out that enlargement presents Austria with bigger and more immediate problems than any other EU member state.

The specific concerns of Austria as the Union's easternmost member become clear when Klima demands that the interests of countries outside the present group of candidates-designate should not be ignored.

“Ukraine's western border is closer to Vienna than Bregrenz,” he pointed out in a recent interview, referring to the city in the west of Austria. “It is in Europe's vital interests to help stabilise countries which will not be included in the first wave of enlargement.”

Like many of his SPÖ colleagues in the government - most of whom owe their appointment to the wide-ranging reshuffle Klima carried out immediately after taking up the chancellorship - he is motivated by the fear that the FPÖ might seize on popular fears and successfully conduct a fiercely anti-enlargement campaign during Austria's national and European elections next year.

Despite the widely publicised fact that he is on superficially easy-going terms with Haider - a man he calls by his first name and addresses with the familiar German form 'Du' - Klima, who wants to lead Austria into the new millennium, is undoubtedly determined to preserve his party's coalition with the conservative ÖVP.

It remains to be seen whether the workaholic Klima will stick to the promise he once gave his second and current wife: to bow out of politics in the year 2000.

BIO