Austria’s Chancellor nominee wants ‘remigration’. What does it mean?

Herbert Kickl, the 56-year-old leader of Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ), has been asked by the country’s president to attempt and form a coalition government.

Although Kickl might need weeks to secure the necessary votes, and negotiations could fall apart at any moment, his odds vastly increased after the centre-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) dropped its red line and voiced willingness to enter negotiations with the FPÖ. The ÖVP had in the past worked with the FPÖ at the federal level but with the mainstream conservatives firmly in the lead. Now, the roles would be reversed.

It is a momentous chance for Kickl and his party, founded in 1956 by former Nazi officials. By all standards, it represents the far-right’s most realistic chance to reach the Austrian Chancellery for the first time since the Second World War.

“I did not take this step lightly,” Austria’s president, Alexander Van der Bellen,* said after tasking Kickl with the job. Kickl had previously called the 80-year-old president “a mummy” and “senile.”

Having Kickl installed in Vienna could have immediate and sweeping implications for Austria’s place in the European Union. His party’s manifesto for the 2024 parliamentary elections makes no secret of its Euroscepticism, with proposals to revise the country’s contribution to the EU budget, undo the Green Deal, and challenge the distribution of competences, coupled with criticism for the bloc’s “irresponsible” sanctions on Russia.

But the proposals on migration are, perhaps, the most explosive.

The FPÖ lays out a vision of “Fortress Austria” that would erect so many barriers to the right of asylum that it would become virtually inaccessible.

The right would be suspended for as long as asylum applications in Austria remain “above average”, pushbacks at the border would be legalised, family reunification and welfare benefits would be phased out, and the government would introduce penalties against both human traffickers and the humans who are trafficked.

More controversially, the authorities would actively pursue the “remigration of uninvited strangers”. “As People’s Chancellor, I will initiate the remigration of all those who trample on our right to hospitality,” Kickl says in the manifesto.

But what does “remigration” exactly mean?

An identitarian dream

The concept of “remigration” is closely linked to the far-right conspiracy of the “Great Replacement” that posits Western civilisation is threatened with an irreversible decline by a falling birth rate and the arrival of migrants from the Middle East and Northern Africa.

The migration section of the FPÖ’s manifesto opens with the title “Homogeinity” to rail against multiculturalism and calls for the emergence of an “ideal and emotional unity”, as Kickl says in a pull-out quote.

“The people of the state are gradually being replaced by permanent mass immigration,” the manifesto reads.

“Remigration” aims at reverting this perceived trend by conducting forced deportations of people of migrant background, including asylum seekers, migrants with long-term residence permits, migrants who have become naturalised citizens and – in the most radical interpretation of the term – their descendants born and raised in Europe.

It is an organised, top-down strategy to alter the demographic composition of a country. Critics have described it as a soft form of ethnic cleansing.

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The concept has long been popular among fringe identitarian movements that embrace white supremacism, as it deliberately targets non-white individuals, and has been gradually adopted by far-right parties with parliamentary representation, particularly since the 2015-2016 migration crisis, which transformed the public discourse around asylum seekers and fuelled a barrage of negative narratives.

However, due to its highly controversial nature and the enormous challenges of conducting mass deportations, “remigration” did not feature prominently in the conversation and was not understood by the wider population.

The lid was lifted in January 2024, when the investigative magazine Correctiv revealed that members of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) had attended a secret meeting in Potsdam where Martin Sellner, the leader of Austria’s Identitarian Movement, presented an extreme “remigration” plan to carry out mass expulsions in Germany.

Sellner’s blueprint targeted three categories of people – asylum seekers, non-Germans with residence rights and “non-assimilated” German citizens – and pitched deportations to a “model state” somewhere in North Africa, with space for up to two million people.

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According to Correctiv, Sellner’s presentation was met with “no objections” from people in the room, who mainly voiced concerns about the plan’s feasibility.

The disclosure triggered a furious backlash across Germany and street protests attended by tens of thousands. Even the AfD sought to distance itself from the meeting, saying the members of the party had attended in a personal capacity.

The public anger and the damaging headlines, though, didn’t relegate “remigration” to political oblivion. Austria’s FPÖ, Spain’s Vox and France’s Reconquête are among those who promote the concept. The AfD has stuck by it, with clarifications, ahead of Germany’s snap elections.

In the US, Donald Trump briefly used the term during his 2024 presidential campaign.

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‘No tolerance’

Standing on the cusp of the Austrian Chancellery, Kickl offers Europe’s far right its best shot yet at giving “remigration” a try.

The FPÖ’s vision of “remigration” does not feature the across-the-board expulsions spelled out by Sellner in Postdam but contains various elements that, if implemented, would allow authorities to target people of migrant background in a systematic manner.

The manifesto proposes the accelerated expulsion of asylum seekers whose applications have been denied or are no longer valid, including “economic refugees”, and who have arrived in Austria through safe third countries. Given that Austria is a landlocked country surrounded by peaceful, developed nations, this would mean that every person who irregularly crosses the land border would have their claim rejected.

Vienna would deny development aid to countries that reject repatriations and establish a “fast-track court” to deal with appeals and petitions. Additionally, it would expand the list of criminal offenses that can trigger the revocation of refugee status and set up “extraterritorial prisons” where convicted criminals would be transferred.

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The FPÖ places special emphasis on the assimilation of migrants into Austrian culture and values, promising “no tolerance for refusal to integrate”. The efforts to assimilate would be recorded in a “naturalisation contract,” which could be breached if the foreign-born citizen commits crimes, abuses the welfare state or shows “disrespect” for the country, vague grounds that could give authorities a wide margin of manoeuvre.

Losing citizenship could pave the way for deportation at a later stage.

“Anyone who becomes a criminal in Austria or does not respect our values does not deserve our protection,” Kickl says in another pull-out quote.

Migrants from Syria and Afghanistan, who make up the bulk of asylum seekers in Austria, would be the top priorities of the “remigration” programme, the manifesto says, because “most of the reasons for fleeing (these countries) no longer exist.”

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The claim is particularly striking because the document was written months before the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s autocracy in Syria.

The Austrian office of Amnesty International has warned against this practice, saying the situation in Syria after Assad remains “extremely volatile” and that “Afghanistan under the Taliban is facing both a humanitarian and human rights crisis”.

“It is well-established under international law and standards on refugee protection, that asylum claims must be processed promptly and effectively, and the individual circumstances of each asylum seeker must be considered on a case-by-case basis,” the organisation said in a statement.

At the EU level, the FPÖ pushes for a European Commissioner dedicated to “remigration” and a “remigration alliance” with like-minded member states.

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All in all, the party imagines an ecosystem where asylum would become a rare, if not impossible, right. But while all these ideas might appear alluring in the eyes of its supporters, making them work in practice might be a completely different story.

“Remigration” plans would inevitably clash with EU and international law, which guarantee access to the asylum process and a fair trial as fundamental rights and prohibit collective expulsions and arbitrary detentions. The principle of non-refoulement forbids authorities from deporting migrants to nations where they could face persecution, torture or any other form of ill-treatment.

“The legal obstacles in the face of arbitrary expulsion are high,” Andrew Geddes, a professor of migration studies at the European University Institute (EUI), told Euronews.

“Aside from the rather important fact that the remigration is a racist idea, there’s not much chance it could withstand legal challenges or be a practical measure to manage migration.”

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The FPÖ’s manifesto seeks to end Austria’s “submission to international courts”.