Austria's President, Mr Thomas Klestil, is expected to give the go-ahead today to a coalition of Mr Jorg Haider's farright Freedom Party and the conservative People's Party, despite threats from EU memberstates, the US and Israel to freeze diplomatic relations with Austria.
Mr Haider and the conservative leader, Dr Wolfgang Schussel, met the President yesterday to present him with a 100-page programme for government.
Mr Klestil has indicated that he feels constitutionally obliged to approve the new government, which would command a comfortable majority in parliament. But in an interview to be published in the Austrian magazine News today, he leaves little doubt about his discomfort at the prospect of Mr Haider's party entering government.
"If I approve this government, I will not be doing so out of personal conviction because I fear that it could damage Austria internationally," he said.
All of Austria's EU partners have threatened to reduce bilateral contacts with Vienna to a minimum if Mr Haider's party enters government and Israel yesterday repeated its threat to withdraw its ambassador from the Austrian capital.
But there are signs that the pressure from abroad may prove counter-productive, as it is perceived by most Austrians as an unacceptable interference in the country's internal affairs.
Fifty-eight per cent of Austrians regard the international reaction as disproportionate, compared with just 30 per cent who believe the threats are appropriate. About 10,000 opponents of the proposed coalition demonstrated in the centre of Vienna last night in an attempt to show the outside world that there is "another Austria" that does not accept the Freedom Party's democratic credentials.
Mr Haider yesterday poured scorn on the threats from abroad, describing them as evidence of a culture of intolerance within the EU that refused to accept the democratically expressed will of the Austrian people.
"There is a lot of excitement in the European chicken pen - even though the fox hasn't even got in," he said, in an interview with German weekly Die Zeit.
"European affairs are not Austrian internal affairs. That is a big mistake. If it were the case, then we would have to abolish the nation-state."
Details of the programme for government between Mr Haider's party and the conservatives remain sketchy but the two parties have committed themselves to a business-friendly economic programme that will balance the government's budget within a few years.
The new government would remain committed to European integration and to the enlargement of the EU to the east.
If Mr Klestil approves the coalition, Dr Schussel will become Chancellor and Mr Haider will remain outside the cabinet in his present post as governor of the province of Carinthia.
Each party would have five cabinet posts, with the conservatives controlling the foreign and interior ministries, agriculture, education and economics while the Freedom Party takes finance, social welfare, justice, defence and infrastructure.
Although Mr Haider has apologised for remarks he made in the past praising Hitler's employment policies and honouring SS veterans, he called yesterday for a more relaxed attitude to the memory of the Holocaust.
"One has to be able to break away from the past some time. I ask myself if we, who were not there at that time, can credibly ask for forgiveness today.
"We are doing it in the name of a generation that is either already dead or no longer has political responsibility," he told Die Zeit. Mr Klestil said yesterday that he understood the anxiety of Austria's international partners at the prospect of Mr Haider's party entering government and criticised the tone of the Freedom Party leader's remarks.
"The Freedom Party is not a Nazi party. But unfortunately, the leading functionaries of this party employ a language that disqualifies them from any political office," he said.
