View source for Viktor Klima

{{Short description|Austrian politician and businessman (born 1947)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}}
{{Infobox Chancellor
| name                = Viktor Klima
| image               = Bundeskanzler Viktor Klima (cropped).JPG
| office              = [[Chancellor of Austria]]
| term_start          = 28 January 1997
| term_end            = 4 February 2000
| president           = [[Thomas Klestil]]
| 1blankname          = {{nowrap|Vice-Chancellor}}
| 1namedata           = [[Wolfgang Schüssel]]
| predecessor         = [[Franz Vranitzky]]
| successor           = [[Wolfgang Schüssel]]
| office1             = [[Chair of the Social Democratic Party of Austria|Chair of the Social Democratic Party]]
| term_start1         = 9 April 1997
| term_end1           = 28 April 2000
| predecessor1        = Franz Vranitzky
| successor1          = [[Alfred Gusenbauer]]
| office2             = [[Federal Ministry of Finance (Austria)|Minister of Finance]]
| term_start2         = 12 March 1996
| term_end2           = 28 January 1997
| chancellor2         = Franz Vranitzky
| predecessor2        = Andreas Staribacher
| successor2          = [[Rudolf Edlinger]]
| office3             = [[Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology|Minister of Public Economy and Transport]]
| term_start3         = 3 April 1992
| term_end3           = 12 March 1996
| chancellor3         = Franz Vranitzky
| predecessor3        = [[Rudolf Streicher]]
| successor3          = Rudolf Scholten
| birth_date          = {{birth date and age|1947|6|4|df=y}}
| birth_place         = [[Schwechat]], [[Allied-occupied Austria|Austria]]
| party               = [[Social Democratic Party of Austria|Social Democratic Party]]
| profession          = {{Hlist|businessman|politician}}
| signature           = Signature of Viktor Klima.png
| caption             = Klima in 1998
}}
'''Viktor Klima''' (born 4 June 1947) is an Austrian [[Social Democratic Party of Austria|Social Democrat]] [[politician]] and businessman. He was [[chancellor of Austria]] from 1997 to 2000.

==Early career==

Born in [[Schwechat]], [[Lower Austria]], Klima started working for the then state-owned [[OMV]] oil company in 1969 and remained with the company up to the beginning of his political career in 1992, in his later years serving as a member of their management board.

==Minister==

Although Klima was then unknown to the majority of Austrians, in 1992, Chancellor [[Franz Vranitzky]] made him Minister of Transportation and Nationalised Industry, a position Klima held till 1996, when he became [[List of Ministers of Finance (Austria)|Finance Minister]] for a year.

==Chancellor of Austria==

In 1997, upon Vranitzky's resignation, Klima was elected chairman of the Social Democratic party and was sworn in as Chancellor of Austria, having renewed the grand coalition between his own party ([[Social Democratic Party of Austria]], SPÖ) and the [[Austrian People's Party]] (ÖVP), with [[Wolfgang Schüssel]] serving as his vice chancellor.

Influenced by the "[[Third Way (centrism)|Third Way]]" strategy of other European leaders such as [[Tony Blair]] and [[Gerhard Schröder]], under Klima's chairmanship the Social Democrats continued their move from the political left towards the centre.{{cn|date=August 2019}}

For example, further [[privatization]]s took place, and several public services that had been subsumed under the policies of the [[welfare state]] were tentatively reduced. As a consequence, a high percentage of the party's traditional [[working class|working-class]] constituency, dissatisfied with Klima and his party, redirected their support to [[Jörg Haider]]'s populist far-right [[Freedom Party of Austria|Freedom Party]] (FPÖ). However, just as his predecessor Vranitzky, Klima repeatedly and publicly announced that under no circumstances was he prepared to enter into a coalition with Haider's party.

Following the [[1999 Austria legislative election|elections of October 1999]], in which the Social Democrats sustained heavy losses, Viktor Klima stepped down as the chairman of his party and was succeeded in this capacity by [[Alfred Gusenbauer]]. As chancellor, he was succeeded by [[Wolfgang Schüssel]] from the Austrian People's Party, who formed a coalition government with the Freedom Party in February 2000.

==Business career==
A few weeks later, with the help of his friend [[Gerhard Schröder]], Klima took up a senior management position with [[Volkswagen]] in Argentina at a time when the country was in a deep economic crisis. Klima became General Manager of Volkswagen's entire South American operations in mid-2006 and was under contract until 2011. Klima's background in politics as well as in economy predestines him for [[business networking|networking]], a capability he has continued to cultivate on the highest level, such as with Argentina's former president, [[Néstor Kirchner]] and his predecessor, [[Eduardo Duhalde]]. Klima retired in 2011 and lives on a cattle farm near Buenos Aires.

==References==
<references />
* "Austria." Britannica Book of the Year, 2001. ''Encyclopædia Britannica Online. [[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'', 2010. Web. 22 January 2010
* "Klima, Viktor (1947-)." ''Encyclopedia of World Biography''. Thomson Gale, 1998

{{s-start}}
{{s-off}}
{{s-bef|before=[[Rudolf Streicher]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology|Minister of Public Economy and Transport]]|years=1992–1996}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Rudolf Scholten]]}}
{{s-bef|before=[[Andreas Staribacher]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Federal Ministry of Finance (Austria)|Minister of Finance]]|years=1996–1997}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Rudolf Edlinger]]}}
{{s-bef|before=[[Franz Vranitzky]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Chancellor of Austria]]|years=1997–2000}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Wolfgang Schüssel]]}}
{{s-ppo}}
{{s-bef|before=[[Franz Vranitzky]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Chair of the Social Democratic Party of Austria|Chair of the Social Democratic Party]]|years=1997–2000}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Alfred Gusenbauer]]}}
{{s-end}}

{{AustrianChancellors}}
{{SPÖ party chairs}}
{{Presidents of the European Council}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Klima, Viktor}}
[[Category:1947 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:20th-century chancellors of Austria]]
[[Category:Social Democratic Party of Austria politicians]]
[[Category:Austrian people of Czech descent]]
[[Category:Ministers of finance of Austria]]
[[Category:People from Schwechat]]