Gerard Mortier, the Belgian artistic director of the Salzburg Festival, is resigning. He says he will not give succour to an administration which includes the far-right Freedom Party and predicts that many artists will follow suit in boycotting the festival.
The Belgian government, among the strongest supporters of a diplomatic boycott, has cancelled an ambulance contract with an Austrian firm (probably in breach of EU public procurement rules).
The diplomatic boycott is only the start, as Austrians are going to find out to their cost. The ripples are beginning to spread to civil society and the economy. Austria's tourism industry has been affected by the cancellation of school trips. Inward investment will suffer.
Even though the EU leaders tried to make sure the EU's institutions were not contaminated by the boycott decision, there is growing concern here that things will not be the same again, either. Of most concern are the enlargement process and the related treaty-changing Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC).
The Freedom Party leader, Jorg Haider, has already made clear with veiled threats that he knows the EU is vulnerable.
"Europe needs our vote," he has warned, noting that major EU policy required unanimity among the 15 member-states. "They are going to sit down with us around a table, if not there won't be any decisions taken in Europe," Mr Haider said in an interview with Germany's ARD television over the weekend. He reiterated the point in a subsequent interview with the Austrian news agency, APA.
But a spokesman for Austria's new foreign minister, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, of the more moderately conservative People's Party, insisted on Saturday that Vienna had no plans to use its veto powers in response to sanctions. "We are not thinking of using the veto to prevent decisions being taken within the European Union," said her spokesman, Johannes Peterlik.
The European Commissioner for Agriculture, Austrian People's Party member, Franz Fischler, responded to Haider's remarks by calling him "incorrigible" in an interview with Format magazine.
"The damage caused by such a suggestion is immense," Fischler said, adding that Haider clearly did not understand how the Union's institutions function. "I fear this will all soon come to an end," he said ominously.
Whether or not Austria brandishes its veto regularly, one consequence of the new regime in Vienna is that attempts to do away with the veto will certainly be made more difficult. The logic of the IGC is that enlargement will mean the accession of "slightly constitutional" states which may not be good team players, and that it would be advisable to make decision-making easier before they get in because later they can block the changes.
But the cuckoo is already in the nest, a reality that should cause Ireland's policy-makers to take a fresh look at their opposition to the extension of qualified majority voting.
While the People's Party, promising policy continuity in EU matters, says it has done what it can to reassure fellow member-states over Austria's continued support for enlargement - Haider called it a "declaration of war" on Austrian workers - a second look will not prove that reassuring.
Austria, under the former Social Democrat/People's Party coalition, despite its public rhetoric, has not been enthusiastic about enlargement. The Social Democratic Finance Minister, Thomas Edlinger, called for a 10-year transition before workers in acceding member-states get free access to the EU's labour market. Little wonder then that the new coalition found its promise of continuity so easy.
An interesting footnote for the EU neutrals: the new Austrian government may find it difficult because of its pariah status to reverse the country's longstanding neutrality and join NATO, as the new government is pledged to do.
Austria's government will have to prove its commitment to democracy and human rights if Vienna wants to join NATO, US and German officials said on Saturday. The German Chancellor's chief foreign policy adviser, Gerhard Steiner, told journalists in Munich that NATO - like the EU - is based on a set of democratic and humanitarian principles which the new coalition in Vienna does not represent.
A British government minister yesterday dismissed Mr Haider's claim that he had a lot in common with the British Prime Minister. In the southern Austrian town of Klagenfurt, Mr Haider suggested that Britain had taken a softer line with him than other EU states.
But the London foreign office minister, Mr Keith Vaz, insisted that Britain stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the other 13 EU states.
Mr Haider said: "We have stood for a long time for those values and ideas that Tony Blair stands for, too. It is difficult in the new Europe to make a distinction between right and left."
Email: psmyth@irish-times.ie
