ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates the Austria Freedom Party's (FPO) attitude towards "foreigners" with few examples, which are the Declaration of St. Lorenzen, the "Austria First" Referendum, the new party program and xenophobia and racism. The FPO attitude towards foreigners has not always been a hostile one, at least not where the liberal wing of the FPO is concerned and not if foreigners were defined as Germans. On September 14, 1986, Jorg Haider replaced Norbert Steger as chairman of the FPO. Due to public pressure, the FPO introduced a party commission which—not surprisingly—stressed that Moelzer had neither deviated from the party-platform nor violated its spirit. Up until the liberal Steger era and the participation in the Social Democratic-FPO coalition, "foreigners" were not a very important topic in Austrian politics anyway. The "foreigners" issue gained importance at that time especially among FPO-clientele. Surprisingly though, FPO supporters didn't have significantly more negative experiences with foreigners than the statistical average.
