Zelenskyy to Address Austrian Parliament despite Pressure from Far-Right

On Thursday, 30 March, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will deliver a speech to the members of the National Council of Austria, the lower house of the Austrian Parliament.

According to the agenda published on the parliament’s website, Volodymyr Zelenskyy will address Austrian parliamentarians online before the start of the National Council meeting. The so-called "parliamentary event", during which the address will be held, will be opened by Wolfgang Sobotka, the speaker of the National Council, at approximately 9:05 local time [10:05 a.m. Kyiv time - ed.].

The session will be followed by an hour of questions and answers with Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg. After that, the MPs will discuss the proposals from the Foreign Policy and  Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion Committees, particularly regarding access to the Austrian labour market for Ukrainian refugees.

Zelenskyy's address to the Austrian parliamentarians was planned last year, but it never took place due to opposition from the far-right Austrian Freedom Party [FPÖ - ed.], Austrian media recall.

Since the start of the full-scale war, Austria, Bulgaria and Hungary are the only remaining countries of the 27 EU member states whose parliaments the Ukrainian president did not address. 

Formally, Zelenskyy will not speak at the meeting of the National Council of Austria either, since in order to overcome the opposition of the FPÖ, the president of Ukraine will procedurally speak at a "parliamentary event".

FPÖ Head Herbert Kickl called Zelenskyy's planned speech a blow to Austria's neutrality.

"Even if we condemn Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine: Austria is a constitutionally neutral state, permanent neutrality is the cornerstone of our self-awareness, and the speech of a representative of the warring party in the centre of our democracy is an absolute violation of taboos," Kickl complained on Facebook.

As a neutral country, Austria does not support Ukraine with weapons but provides humanitarian aid.

In February, Alexander Van der Bellen, President of Austria, visited the city of Kyiv.

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer visited Ukraine in April last year.