By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS Monday, Oct. 26, is Austria’s official national day, but because of the still-surging covid-19 pandemic, Austrian Ambassador to Mexico Franz Josef Kuglitsch and his wife Maria Kuglitsch will not be offering their traditional diplomatic reception to mark the day this year. Notwithstanding, Kuglitsch, who will be retiring and returning home to Vienna in January, did send out
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By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS Less than a month after a contentious snap election spurred by a major corruption scandal, Austria’s still-de facto Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and his conservative, Christian-democratic People’s Party are in the midst of cautiously measuring potential new alliances, wavering between a weakened far-right Freedom Party (Kurz’s former partner, which was at the heart of the scandal and nearly
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By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS Diplomatically, Austria is an anomaly in Europe. Although it is not the only nation in the European Union (EU) with a commitment to neutrality (Switzerland, Sweden, Malta, Finland and Ireland are also committed to international nonalignment, though in varying degrees and with varying stipulations), it is the only one that essentially had neutrality thrust upon it. How
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