When Christian Ragger heard that the Swiss had voted to cap immigration into their country in a referendum last weekend, he was "deeply impressed", he says. "All over the world, immigration is protected [from being limited]. It required a special courage to vote in that way. This was a typically democratic Swiss action."
Ragger heads the local branch of the Austrian Freedom party (FPÖ) in its mountainous stronghold of Carinthia, in the south of the country. Once led by the flamboyant Jörg Haider, the FPÖ has been called everything from populist to neo-Nazi, yet it would be hard to imagine anyone less like the stereotype of a bull-necked, red-faced Alpine far right-winger than the FPÖ's trim and cosmopolitan young leader.
Ragger speaks good English and excellent Italian and, before joining the regional government, was a partner in a law firm that has branches in Milan and Florence.
When Haider's party joined the Austrian government after winning 27% of the vote in the 1999 general election, other European Union countries were so horrified that they took the unprecedented decision to reduce to a minimum their contacts with Austrian officials. Since then, Haider has died and the FPÖ has split. Now it is back – and with a vengeance. It came second in each of the last five opinion polls in Austria – and those were all carried out before last weekend's vote.
