Frollein wrote:Austria wasn't politically isolated, where did you get that from? And it's not just the FPÖ, Kurz is aiming for the next chancelloship and he's a hardliner because that's what the population wants - how else would the FPÖ get over 30% in elections?
Austria isn't part of NATO, it wasn't part of EU for a long time. Germany doesn't need Austria (despite ordinary Germans sometimes suggesting "wiedervereinigung
") and Austria doesn't want to beg Germany to push something through. It has been left alone for a long time so it got used to lone existence without much cooperation. If I was Austrian I would consider this situation totally unacceptable given the importance Austria played in the past.
I have seen opinion polls and since Kurz became OVP leader FPO is going down, now about 25%. But I'm not a fan of Kurz. I view him as desperate attempt of OVP to save themselves and present new figure while the party is the same. Like Kaczynski used Szydlo. Kaczynski would love to be the new Pilsudski but he is a joke. Orban seems to be most professional from these, makes no stupid mistakes. He is on good road to become new Horthy (in positive sense).
Beren wrote:I also wonder whether which one of them would be interested in "recreating a pseudo-Habsburg".
There are many small countries in central Europe that need to cooperate if they want any influence in the EU. This cooperation made sense historically and also makes sense now. It was interrupted in 20th century only due to catastropic events. Slovenia and Croatia will soon also understand this.
Beren wrote:Austria just doesn't belong there, simple as that. As arch enemies Hungarians refer to Austrians as their brothers-in-law sometimes.
The original reasons for V4s existence are no longer relevant. It's only relevant due to the EU. In my opinion due to EU it makes sense to expand it by further with countries - Austria, Slovenia, Croatia.
I would expect Hungary to understand reasons for cooperation most from all these countries as it learned the hard way that if it can't influence events, other countries will influence them not neccessarily in Hungary's favor as happened after WW1 when it got dissected.