Austria's Vice-Chancellor Backs Dodik in Bosnian Election

Austria's far-right Vice Chancellor lent support for Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik and his Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD, in the upcoming elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina at a meeting in Vienna on Monday, according to Bosnian media RTRS and ATV.

The SNSD and Heinz-Christian Strache's Freedom Party, FPO, have long been supportive of each other, with FPO officials often attending events in Dodik's Bosnian Serb entity, Republika Srpska, including on the entity's disputed "statehood day", which the country's constitutional court had earlier outlawed.

Dodik and Strache have met on several other occasions, the last time being a year ago, in October 2017, ahead of the election in Austria.

The RS President then backed Strache and invited Serbs in Austria to vote for his Freedom Party, FPO.

According to the latest media reports, Strache said he supported Dodik's tough position on the migrant crisis in Europe and said more efforts should be made to strengthen borders, so that migrants could not come to the Balkans.

The two also talked about the upcoming elections for the European Parliament scheduled for May 2019.

"These elections will be a milestone in European politics since the policies of [French President Emmanuel] Macron and [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel policies can no longer be passed," Strache said.

The Eurosceptic, anti-immigrant party, best known for its anti-Muslim views, is a part of the coalition government in Austria as a junior partner to Sebastian Kurz's Austrian People's Party, OVP.

Under the terms of the coalition deal, Strache became Austria's Vice-Chancellor and Minister for the Civil Service and Sport.

The FPO has long taken a pro-Russia stance, calling for an end to...