By Norbert van Handel.
Norbert van Handel, with whom Ferenc Almássy made an interview in May, is an Austrian jurist and man of influence in Austria. He offered us his comment on the travel of President Van der Bellen to Prague recently.
“Van der Bellen and Norbert Hofer in Prague – what a difference!
When Norbert Hofer visited the Czech President Zeman as a candidate for the Austrian presidential election last fall, the climate could not have been better.
The hospitality of President Zerman at that time was supported by warmth and humor. The charisma and friendliness of Norbert Hofer resulted in a direct success: the invitation of President Zeman asking Austria to join the Visegrad alliance. He was right.
On the other hand, the visit of the [now elected] Austrian President Van der Bellen in Prague was an act of tristesse. He and Zeman agreed to be smokers and to be born the same year. Everything else may be subsumed under the heading “they agreed to disagree”. Too bad, because an Austrian President, even if he is already old, should try to win friends for his country.
It was similar when Van der Bellen visited Budapest. Only the courtesy of the Hungarians prevented further embarrassments. Of course, both visits were overshadowed by Van der Bellen‘s schoolmasterly attitude that Austria‘s Central Eastern European neighbors receive subsidies from the EU, but do not accept any refugees. What a stupid argument.
Wasn’t it Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin who decided at the conferences in Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam, that Central Europe should remain under the domination of the Soviets for almost half a century? It is, therefore, more than just a debt that has to be rendered to Austria‘s neighbors from the full, but poorly managed pots of the EU, in order to contribute in an appropriate manner to build up their infrastructure, their economy and their entire Christian national culture.
It is by no means the obligation of countries who have been under Soviet servitude for half a century to support the inability of the EU to deal with the problem of refugee. If they had to endure foreign domination for decades, it is only too understandable that one does not want, as a Christian country, to switch from the Soviet rule to Islam. Austria and his President should not only understand but also support this position!”
