page_title: Sebastian Kurz
section_title: Public profile
hierarchical_section_title: Sebastian Kurz / Public profile
caption_attribution_description: English: After signing Russian-Austrian documents. With musical prodigy Alma Deutscher, 13, who played a little fantasia in honour of the President of Russia.
context_page_description: Sebastian Kurz has been chancellor of Austria since January 2020, a position he previously held from December 2017 to May 2019. Kurz has also been chairman of the Austrian People's Party since May 2017.
  Kurz was born and raised in Meidling, Vienna. He acquired his Matura in 2004 at the GRG 12 Erlgasse and subsequently completed mandatory military service in 2005. Kurz attended the faculty of law at the University of Vienna, and left before graduating to focus on his political career. He entered politics by joining the Young People's Party in 2003. Five years later he assumed his first political office there as chairman of the JVP for Vienna. In 2010, Kurz successfully ran for the Viennese State Diet and thereby obtained his first governmental post. Following a reshuffle of the First Faymann cabinet in 2011, Kurz was nominated and appointed state secretary of the Interior Ministry for social integration. After the 2013 legislative election, Kurz became foreign minister of Austria and remained the country's top diplomat until December 2017.
  Following the resignation of Vice Chancellor Reinhold Mitterlehner as chairman of the People's Party in May 2017, Kurz was named his successor.
context_section_description: Following Kurz's first official visit to Berlin, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung found him "highly eloquent", "succinct" and "everything but sheepish", and even quoted those calling him the "young Metternich". In December 2014, the German Press Agency praised Kurz as one of "seven winners on the political world stage 2014".
  Anna von Bayern of the Focus magazine wrote "one truly notices the new self-confidence of the Foreign Ministry, Kurz endowed it with new relevance". Vienna had become a "place of dialogue", first with the Ukraine summit in 2014 and later with the negotiations on the nuclear deal with Iran. In autumn 2015, the Syria discussions began in Vienna. In March 2016, Franz Schandl described Kurz in an article of Der Freitag newspaper as someone who draws a "friendly face". However, his substantive differences with his right-wing populist competitors were said to be only "marginal". In 2017, the U.S. magazine Time listed Kurz as one of ten "Next Generation Leaders". The "statesman of the new kind" has found a way to deal with the refugee crisis. The "pragmatic way" worked out and was adopted by other European politicians. Die Welt described Kurz as a "conservative-liberal, European-minded politician", whose rise to power in many ways resembled that of President Emmanuel Macron. The closure of the Balkan route had been a diplomatic feat. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung said Kurz embodied "uprising, confidence, dynamism, elegance and determination", while Angela Merkel stood for "stagnation". He was "sovereign, also sympathetic towards critics, and a master of the German language. If Kurz was German, he would be Chancellor, or right before becoming Chancellor".
  The magazine Cicero regarded Kurz as a "charismatic figure" in contrast to the "often naïve, all multi-cultural basically positive-looking German elites who enjoy the grace of late birth". Eric Frey, writing in the Austrian newspaper Der Standard, wrote, with regards to the National Council election in 2017, that the "distrust" of the newspaper's editorial staff towards Sebastian Kurz would weigh heavy. This was because Kurz led a "foreigner election campaign", reducing problems to the topic of immigration, and would play the "strict law guardian". However, Frey also saw some grounds for tendencies supporting Kurz, saying that he was an "effective answer" to populists like "Haider, Strache and Co". Kurz would elaborate the majority opinion that immigration would have to be more strictly regulated, "without hounding and polemics". Kurz was a "natural talent in decision-making" with "high social and analytical capabilities". According to Frey, the crucial question was whether Kurz was liberal and democracy-minded or was a "wannabe Orbán". This question would currently be "unanswerable". A hypothetical Chancellor Kurz would "split the country like no other head of government before". In addition, parallels were drawn with Haider, until then the most successful federal leader of the right-wing populist FPÖ. The Rheinische Post wrote: "If we look directly at his supporters, Kurz strongly resembles Jörg Haider, the legendary right-wing populist, who about 30 years ago set out to destroy the eternal red-black proportional system – and ultimately failed. What changes Kurz strives for, was not clarified during his election campaign. The only thing truly clear, is that he wants to become Austria's youngest Chancellor. Therefore even calling for the installation of a Richtlinienkompetenz after the German example, in which ministers would be subordinated to the Chancellor".
  In June 2018, a commentary of Edward Lucas published by the Financial Times drew parallels with the current political development of Europe and the United States with the situation in the 1930s. Kurz was said to be easily comparable with the Republican U.S. President Donald Trump and the right-wing Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, and Lucas referred to him as the "right-wing Chancellor". Following the commentary's publication, the Embassy of Austria in Washington contacted the author and deman
caption: Kurz has cultivated a public image around traditional Austrian culture and values.[230][224] He had Alma Deutscher play classical music for Russian President Vladimir Putin during a state visit.[234]
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