Austria's Kurz optimistic new coalition will last full term

Austrian conservative leader Sebastian Kurz says he's optimistic that his new coalition government with the environmentalist Greens will last a full five-year term — something that the country's last two elected administrations failed to do.

Kurz's People's Party and the Greens agreed Wednesday to form a coalition of once-unlikely political allies. If a Green party convention on Saturday approves the deal, the 33-year-old Kurz will return to power seven months after his previous alliance with the far-right Freedom Party collapsed.

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Kurz told ORF television Thursday night he is “very optimistic that this government cooperation will last for five years, and I will try to contribute everything to making that possible.”

Kurz himself had a hand in ending the two previous governments. In 2017, he helped end a year early a bad-tempered government led by the center-left Social Democrats in which he was foreign minister. He told ORF it was right to end such a “standstill.”

Kurz then became chancellor of a coalition government with the Freedom Party. He pulled the plug after 17 months following the release of a video showing then-Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache offering favors to a purported Russian investor.

Parliament then ousted Kurz in a no-confidence vote. Austria has since been run by a non-partisan interim government under Chancellor Brigitte Bierlein.

The People's Party and Greens were the big winners of Austria's general election in September.