Austria

Andreas Babler has announced he will step down as leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) and as Vice-Chancellor in the coming months. He intends to hand the party to an interim committee by the end of the year, though he will stay on as minister for housing, arts, and culture. It is an attempt to settle a party that has spent recent months being described by analysts as a rudderless ship.

The internal reshuffle follows a period of polling that suggests the SPÖ is struggling to find its footing. While some party veterans argue for a return to the center, others suggest that leaning further into economic left-wing positions is the only way to win. For now, the coalition government appears content to watch the opposition's restructuring from a safe distance.

Elsewhere, the state is preparing for a shift in focus toward technology and transparency. State Secretary Alexander Pröll is drafting a national strategy on artificial intelligence for November, while a parliamentary inquiry into drug crime returned the unexpected result of a decline in offenses. In the capital, the city has spent €600,000 to move Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek’s manuscripts and correspondence into the Vienna Library.