Austria’s recently retired top spymaster has admitted to limiting the intelligence given to FPÖ ministers, citing alleged links to the Kremlin during the party’s doomed 2017 to 2019 coalition with the conservative ÖVP. This admission represents a thinly veiled attack on the populist party ahead of next year’s elections.
Peter Gridling, who between 2008 and 2020 served as head of Austria’s primary intelligence agency, the BVT, made the comments in an interview with the Financial Times as he launched a tell-all book about his clashes with the FPÖ during the latter half of his tenure as security chief.
Presently riding high in the polls ahead of legislative elections scheduled for autumn next year, the FPÖ has long been tarnished by the Viennese political establishment for its defence of Austrian neutrality and alleged links to the Kremlin.
The party was abruptly forced out of office in 2017 when a mysterious sting operation embroiled then-FPÖ leader and Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache in a plot to buy Austria’s largest tabloid Kronen Zeitung by a fake Russian oligarch and steer it in a more partisan direction in exchange for political favours.
Strache was subsequently cleared of corruption charges in court with the party clawing back support on the back of opposition to lockdown measures and asylum seekers.
Gridling publicly crossed swords with the current FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl while the latter was Austrian Interior Minister during the coalition years, with the intelligence agency’s offices raided in 2018 on charges of abusing its power.
In his remarks, Gridling warned that Russia was hoping to capitalise on a potential FPÖ win in 2024 and had a long-term perspective of drawing Austria away from the Atlantic alliance. The ex-spymaster also admitted to not fully disclosing information about investigations into right-wing extremism to Kickl when in office, as he warned that intelligence belonging to MI5 had ended up in the hands of FPÖ officials.
A historical post-war buffer zone, Vienna has a notorious reputation as a centre for international espionage between Russia and the West. As a result, Austria is specifically excluded from certain European intelligence-sharing communities due to the supposed risk of Russian snooping.
Former FPÖ foreign minister Karin Kneissl appeared to defect to Russia last month saying that she was fleeing the country in fear for her life when it was alleged by Austrian intelligence services that the diplomat was a potential ringleader in an attempt to establish a right-wing deep state during her tenure.
Part of a trend by European intelligence chiefs ruminating against populism, Germany’s top spy Thomas Haldenwang warned citizens against voting for the right-wing AfD this year as his agency placed the party under formal surveillance due to alleged extremist tendencies.
