Country profile: Austria It is now four years since all other EU member states boycotted Austria after Mr Wolfgang Schüssel's decision to share power with Dr Jörg Haider's far-right Freedom Party. As Austria prepares to vote in the European elections, however, the boycott in 2000 has become one of the biggest campaign themes.
The Freedom Party and Mr Schüssel's Conservative People's Party have accused the opposition Social Democrats of acting against Austria's interests by encouraging the boycott.
Dr Haider has branded the Social Democrats' leading candidate, Mr Hannes Swoboda, a "national traitor" and called for him to be stripped of his right to vote and banned from seeking public office.
"Every normal criminal should have his right to vote withdrawn when he has severely acted against the constitution, and treason against the fatherland is such an act," he said.
Mr Swoboda has rejected the accusation of treachery, pointing out that France's conservative President, Mr Jacques Chirac, led the call for sanctions against Austria, which was opposed by many European socialists.
The Green MEP, Mr Johannes Voggenhuber, accused the governing parties of turning history on its head by ignoring the fact that Mr Schüssel brought the sanctions upon himself by breaking a promise not to share power with Dr Haider's xenophobic party.
The Social Democrats, who won the same number of seats as the People's Party in the 1999 European elections, hoped to pull ahead this year. Their prospects have been hit, however, by the loss of their leading candidate, Mr Hans-Peter Martin, who has left the party to lead an independent list of candidates.
Mr Martin became the most unpopular man in Strasbourg earlier this year when he launched a campaign to expose the fiddling of expenses that he claims is rife among MEPs. He was particularly outraged by the practice of claiming a subsistence allowance of €262 on Friday mornings before flying home early for the weekend.
Mr Martin, a former investigative journalist, secretly filmed MEPs claiming the allowance and encouraged his assistants to eavesdrop on conversations to pick up further evidence. Most other MEPs were appalled by his tactics, and Mr Pat Cox singled Mr Martin out for condemnation during his parting speech as president.
Mr Martin's campaign has done him no harm with the public in Austria, however, and opinion polls predict that his list will win 11 per cent of the votes, placing it just behind the Greens, who are expected to emerge as the third-largest party.
The Social Democrats and the People's Party are in the lead with about 35 per cent of the vote each, but the Freedom Party has seen its support slump to just 7 per cent.
Among the other issues of concern to voters are demands for an end to nuclear power and the closure of a nuclear plant in the Czech Republic. Voters also want a European solution to limit the number of heavy vehicles crossing the Alpine republic, which create huge traffic jams and cause great environmental damage.
All the parties agree that Austria should hold a referendum on the constitutional treaty if it is agreed next week, but Austria's EU Commissioner, Dr Franz Fischler, has complained that the campaign has focused so little on European issues.
"In Austria people always tend to experience EU membership as if the country were now influenced by a foreign power, or forced into an alliance," he said.
