Sebastian Kurz has been chancellor of Austria since January 2020. He previously held the position from December 2017 to May 2019. Kurz is the second youngest head of government in the world, and first elected to the post aged 31, the youngest chancellor in Austrian history.
About Sebastian Kurz in brief
Sebastian Kurz has been chancellor of Austria since January 2020. He previously held the position from December 2017 to May 2019. Kurz is the second youngest head of government in the world, and first elected to the post aged 31, the youngest chancellor in Austrian history. His youth and political tenor have been credited with revitalizing the traditional conservative movement in Austria, and to a larger extent, in Europe. Opponents have denounced him as uncooperative and hasty, particularly with respect to his signature issues: immigration and social politics. He has been in a relationship with economics teacher Susanne Thier since the time they spent in school together. His maternal grandmother Magdalena Müller – born 1928 in Temerin, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes – is a Danube Swabian who fled from the city and settled in Zogelsdorf during World War II. He is the only child of Roman Catholic parents Josef and Elisabeth Kurz. His father is an engineer and his mother is a grammar school teacher. He obtained his Matura certificate in 2004, completed compulsory military service in 2005, and began studying law at the University of Vienna the same year. Later, he dropped out of university and focused on his political career. He entered politics by joining the Young People’s Party in 2003 and 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, he was nominated and appointed state secretary of the Interior Ministry for social integration. After the 2013 legislative election, he became foreign minister of Austria and remained the country’s top diplomat until December 2017. Following the Ibiza affair and the end of the ÖVP–FPÖ majority coalition, KurZ was dismissed by the National Council through a motion of no confidence passed by the SPÖ, FPÖ and Jetzt in May 2019, and returned to power, forming another coalition – this time with the environmentalist Green Party. In he was elected federal chairman at a party convention where he received 99 percent of the vote; five years later he was reelected with 100 percent of vote; he handed over the office of federal chair to Austrian attorney Stefan Schnöll. In 2009, he commissioned a black-painted car termed the Geilomobil to be driven through Vienna. He was a member of the Austrian State Diet from 2009 to 2016, and additionally served as a deputy chair of the People’s Party in Vienna from 2010 to 2011. In May 2017 he was named as the top candidate of his party to lead the next government. He had been the leader of the Young Party since 2003 and was sponsored by Markus Figl. From 2008 to 2012, he was chairman of the J VP for Vienna, and coined the campaign’s controversial electoral slogan Schwarz macht geil, a play on the official party colour.
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This page is based on the article Sebastian Kurz published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
