
Sebastian Kurz (27 August 1986-) was Chancellor of Austria from 18 December 2017 to 28 May 2019 (succeeding Christian Kern and preceding Hartwig Loeger) and from 7 January 2020 to 11 October 2021 (succeeding Brigitte Bierlein and preceding Alexander Schallenberg).
Biography[]
Sebastian Kurz was born in Meidling, Vienna, Austria in 1986, and he was a member of the OVP's JVP youth wing since 2003. He dropped out of the University of Vienna in 2005 to focus on his political career, and he served as chairman of JVP in Vienna from 2008 to 2012. In 2009, he was elected the JVP's national chairman, and he served in the Vienna State and Municipality Diet from 2010 to 2011. He worked for the Interior Ministry as State Secretary for Integration from 2011 to 2013, and he briefly served on the National Council in 2013, leaving to serve as Foreign Minister from 2013 to 2017, the youngest person to hold the post. After the resignation of Vice-Chancellor Reinhold Mitterlehner as OVP chairman in May 2017, Kurz was appointed as his successor, and he attempted to reform the OVP as the "New People's Party", shifting the party's views to the right by opposing same-sex marriage, multiculturalism, and immigration. In the 2017 general election, his party received 31.5% of the vote, and Kurz formed a coalition government with the far-right FPO party. He enabled the 12-hour workday, initiated a fusion of all Austrian social insurances, enacted the Family Bonus Plus, prohibited full face veils in public, amended family subsidy for European foreigners, installed the monitoring compact, established compulsory German language classes, rejected the Global Compact for Migration, presented the Digital Office, and federalized the basic income. After the Ibiza affair, the downfall of FPO leader Heinz-Christian Strache, and the fall of the FPO-OVP coalition government, Kurz was ousted from power in a vote of no-confidence on 27 May 2019, and President Alexander Van der Bellen appointed Hartwig Loeger as the acting Chancellor. He returned to power after the September 2019 snap election, forming a coalition with The Greens - The Green Alternative. However, Kurz continued to be mired in scandals, and an October 2021 corruption probe led to Kurz's resignation as Chancellor on 9 October.