Austria's conservative Chancellor, Mr Wolfgang Schuessel, has turned to Mr Joerg Haider'sfar-right to renew the pact that collapsed last year. Mr Schuessel, searching for a coalition partner threemonths after elections, offered coalition talks to theanti-immigration, EU-sceptical Freedom Party after aconservative party leadership meeting rejected seeking a return to the "grand coalition" with the Social Democrats that dominated post-war Austria.
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Mr Joerg Haider
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The Freedom Party, still dominated by its Mr Haider despite the fact he gave up the chairmanship three yearsago, has said it wanted to return to government withMr Schuessel despite causing the previous two-party coalition to collapse.
"We have all learned from our mistakes. I believe theFreedom Party will be a stable partner," Mr Schuessel toldreporters.
Bitter power struggles within the Freedom Party led itsmoderate ministers, including Finance Minister Karl-HeinzGrasser, to quit last September in the face of a drive by Haider loyalists to reverse cabinet decisions on tax cuts, new jet fighters and EU expansion.
Mr Schuessel responded by breaking off the coalition andcalling snap elections on November 24th that his People's Partywon in a landslide with 42 per cent; Mr Haider's divided party lost two-thirds of its voters to end in third place.
Since then, Mr Schuessel has held what he called exploratorytalks with each of the other parties but only beganformal talks on a new government with the Greens, whichcollapsed on Sunday over a range of policy differences.