President of Austria Alexander Van der Bellen dismissed government ministers headed by Chancellor Sebastian Kurz on Tuesday and ordered them to serve as acting ministers until an interim government of the republic is formed. The president also appointed Minister of Finance and Vice Chancellor of Austria Hartwig Loger as acting Chancellor of Austria, as Kurz had refused to serve as acting Chancellor.
The ceremony was held in the Austrian president’s chancellery in Vienna. Sebastian Kurz attended it.
The reshuffling in the Austrian government occurred after the National Council (the lower house of parliament) had voted no-confidence to Kurz’s cabinet of ministers on May 27 in light of the governmental crisis amid former Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache’s vociferous resignation.
Acting Chancellor Hartwig Loger, who served as Vice Chancellor and Minister of Finance, will govern the cabinet of ministers for several days, until the president finds a better candidate for the post of acting chancellor. Loger will not be able to occupy this post for long, because Kurz’s government received a no-confidence motion in the parliament.
As soon as the president chooses a new acting chancellor, the latter will have to suggest the president a new team of ministers for approval that will provide the working capability of the interim government until an early election to the parliament is September. Van der Bellen promised to form an interim government in a week.
In the near future, Loger, aged 53, will represent Austria at the EU summit in Brussels. Earlier, Loger earlier occupied the post of Minister of Finance in Kurz’s government for 17 months and was also nominated by him to the post of vice chancellor following Heinz-Christian Strache’s vociferous resignation. Before coming to Kurz’s government, Loger was not a politician, but a financier. He served as Chief Executive Officer of Austria’s largest insurance company UNIQA in 2011-2017.