image

epa07590046 Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen arrives to deliver a speech to the public at the Presidential office in Vienna, Austria, 21 May 2019. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz proposed on 20 May 2019 to sack Interior Minister Herbert Kickl of the coalition partner the right-wing Austian Freedom Party (FPOe) in a move that could provoke the FPOe to withdraw all their ministers from the cabinet and the collapse of the government. This comes in the aftermath of Austrian Vice Chancellor and FPOe party leader Strache's resignation on 18 May 2019 from his post as he was caught in a corruption allegations scandal. German magazine 'Der Spiegel' and newspaper 'Sueddeutsche Zeitung' published on 17 May 2019 a secretly recorded video which appeared to show Strache in Ibiza, Spain, in July 2017, meeting an alleged niece of a unknown Russian oligarch who wanted to invest large sums of money in Austria. EPA/CHRISTIAN BRUNA