Alexander Van der Bellen

Alexander Van der Bellen
Born	Alexander Van der Bellen 18 1, 1944
Birthplace	Vienna, Austria
Nationality	Austrian
Occupation	Politician, economist, academic
Known for	President of Austria (2017–present), former spokesman of the Austrian Green Party
Education	Doctorate in Economics
Website	[bundespraesident.at Official site]

Alexander Van der Bellen (born 18 January 1944), commonly known by the nickname Sascha and sometimes referred to by the abbreviation VdB, is an Austrian politician and economist who has served as the President of Austria since 26 January 2017. Before entering politics, Van der Bellen held a professorship in economics at the University of Vienna. He became a prominent figure in Austrian public life through his long tenure as spokesman of the Austrian Green Party, a position he used to advocate for environmentalism, social liberalism, and European federalism. Born in Vienna to parents who had fled the Soviet occupation of Estonia, Van der Bellen became a naturalized Austrian citizen in 1958. He served as a member of the National Council from 1994 to 2012, representing the Green Party. In the 2016 presidential election, he ran as a nominally independent candidate with Green Party support and, after a protracted and internationally observed electoral process that included a court-ordered re-run, defeated Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). He became the second Green head of state in the European Union, after Raimonds Vējonis of Latvia, and the first to be directly elected by popular vote.

Early Life

Alexander Van der Bellen was born on 18 January 1944 in Vienna, Austria. His parents were refugees who had fled from Estonia, which was under Soviet occupation during World War II. The family has roots in the former Russian Empire's aristocratic Van der Bellen lineage, which traces its patrilineal ancestry to the Netherlands, dating back to the 18th century. His father was of Russian-Estonian background, and the family's displacement during the war years shaped the circumstances of Van der Bellen's birth in wartime Austria.

Van der Bellen and his parents were not Austrian citizens at the time of his birth. The family lived in Austria as stateless refugees in the postwar period, and it was not until 1958 that Alexander Van der Bellen, together with his parents, obtained naturalized Austrian citizenship. This experience of statelessness and refugee status during his formative years would later inform his political outlook, particularly regarding issues of immigration, European integration, and the rights of displaced persons.

Van der Bellen grew up in Austria during the period of postwar reconstruction and the early years of the Austrian State Treaty, which restored full Austrian sovereignty in 1955. The circumstances of his family's arrival in Austria — as refugees from Soviet-occupied territory — placed the Van der Bellens among the many displaced families who resettled in Western Europe during and after the Second World War.

Education

Van der Bellen pursued higher education in economics, eventually obtaining a doctorate in the field. He went on to build an academic career at the University of Vienna, where he served as a professor of economics. His academic specialization provided the foundation for his later political career, during which he frequently drew upon his expertise in economic policy and public finance. Van der Bellen's transition from academia to politics was gradual, and he maintained his professorial credentials throughout much of his political career.

Career

Academic Career

Before entering elected politics, Van der Bellen established himself as a professor of economics at the University of Vienna, one of Austria's most prominent institutions of higher education. His academic work focused on economic theory and policy, and he was recognized within Austrian academic circles for his contributions to the field. His position at the university gave him a platform from which he engaged with public policy debates, and his academic reputation lent credibility to his subsequent political career.

Green Party Leadership and Parliamentary Career

Van der Bellen joined the Austrian Green Party (Die Grünen) and became one of its most recognizable figures. He was elected to the National Council (Nationalrat), the lower house of the Austrian parliament, in 1994, where he represented the Green Party. He served in this capacity for nearly two decades, remaining a member of the National Council until 2012.

During his time in parliament, Van der Bellen rose to become both the leader of the Green Party and the head of its parliamentary group, serving as the party's federal spokesman. Under his leadership, the Greens consolidated their position as a significant force in Austrian politics, advocating for environmental protection, civil liberties, social justice, and European integration. Van der Bellen positioned the party as a pro-European, socially liberal alternative within the Austrian political landscape.

Van der Bellen has described his own political orientation as that of a centrist liberal, and he has supported green and social liberal policies throughout his career. He has been a vocal proponent of the European Union, and in his 2015 book he advocated for European federalism, arguing that if the EU did not exist, it would need to be invented.

2016 Presidential Election

First Round and Initial Second Round

In 2016, Van der Bellen entered the Austrian presidential election as a nominally independent candidate, though he received the formal endorsement and support of the Green Party. The election attracted significant international attention amid the broader rise of right-wing populism across Europe. Van der Bellen faced a crowded field of six candidates in the first round of voting, which took place on 24 April 2016. He finished second, qualifying for the second round alongside Norbert Hofer, the candidate of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), a right-wing populist party.

The second round, held on 22 May 2016, resulted in an extremely close contest. Van der Bellen was declared the winner by a narrow margin, with the result hinging on the counting of postal (absentee) ballots. The result was celebrated by pro-European and centrist forces across Europe as a rebuff to the populist right, while observers noted the deeply divided nature of Austrian society that the close result revealed.

During the campaign, Van der Bellen appealed broadly to the political centre and received endorsements from the leaders of both the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) and the conservative Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), an unusual cross-party coalition of support that reflected the establishment's concern about the prospect of a Hofer presidency.

Constitutional Court Annulment

On 1 July 2016, before Van der Bellen was due to be sworn into office, the Constitutional Court of Austria annulled the results of the second round of voting. The court ruled that absentee ballots had been improperly counted ahead of the legally mandated schedule in a number of constituencies, constituting procedural irregularities that necessitated a fresh vote. The court did not find evidence of actual fraud or that the irregularities had changed the outcome, but ruled that the legal requirements for counting had not been followed, requiring the election to be re-held.

The annulment was unprecedented in modern Austrian history and drew extensive international media coverage. It raised questions about the integrity of electoral processes in a mature European democracy and set the stage for a protracted rematch between Van der Bellen and Hofer.

Re-Run and Victory

The re-run of the second round was initially scheduled for October 2016, but was postponed to 4 December 2016 due to problems with defective postal ballot envelopes. The extended campaign period saw both candidates intensify their efforts. The election was closely watched internationally, with many commentators framing it as a test of whether the wave of populist electoral successes seen in the Brexit referendum and the 2016 United States presidential election would continue on the European continent.

On 4 December 2016, Van der Bellen won the re-run decisively, taking approximately 54% of the vote compared to Hofer's 46%. The margin was significantly larger than in the annulled May result, suggesting that the extended campaign period and intervening political developments may have shifted public opinion somewhat in Van der Bellen's favour. French newspaper Courrier International described the result as a moment of relief in the face of populism across Europe.

Presidency

Inauguration and Early Tenure

Van der Bellen was sworn in as President of Austria on 26 January 2017. As president, he assumed the largely ceremonial but constitutionally significant role of head of state, which includes the power to appoint and dismiss the chancellor and government, dissolve the National Council, and represent Austria internationally. Van der Bellen brought to the presidency his background in economics and his long-standing commitment to European integration and environmental policy.

International Engagement

As president, Van der Bellen has been active in international diplomacy. In May 2025, he held a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo, during which the two leaders discussed bilateral relations between Austria and Japan.

In September 2025, Van der Bellen met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of international proceedings. Later that month, he met with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.

In October 2025, Van der Bellen conducted an official visit to Lithuania, which was described by Austrian diplomatic sources as providing an important boost to bilateral relations between the two countries.

In December 2025, Van der Bellen met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the OSCE Ministerial Council.

Domestic Policy Positions

In his capacity as president, Van der Bellen has continued to articulate positions on key policy issues. In January 2026, he delivered an address at the New Year's Reception for the Diplomatic Corps in which he emphasised the importance of international structures that create a basis for rules and international order, and that encourage cooperation among nations.

In February 2026, Van der Bellen voiced support for extending Austria's compulsory military service and for the return of reservist training, reflecting his engagement with defence and security policy during a period of heightened geopolitical tension in Europe.

Personal Life

Van der Bellen's personal life has been shaped in significant ways by his family's history as refugees. Born to parents of Russian and Estonian origin who had fled the Soviet occupation of Estonia, he spent his early years as a stateless person before obtaining Austrian citizenship at the age of fourteen in 1958.

Van der Bellen's relationship with religion has been a matter of public record in Austria. He has been reported to have re-entered the Protestant (Evangelical) Church, and has spoken publicly about the importance of the message of the New Testament to him personally.

His aristocratic family heritage — descended from a lineage of patrilineal Dutch ancestry that became established in the Russian Empire during the 18th century — has been a subject of occasional public interest in Austria, though Van der Bellen himself has not emphasized this aspect of his background in his political career.

Recognition

Van der Bellen's election as President of Austria in 2016 was itself a landmark event that garnered significant international recognition. He became the second president of an EU member state to come from a Green political background, following Raimonds Vējonis of Latvia, and the first Green head of state to be directly elected by popular vote in any EU country.

His victory in the 2016 presidential election was widely covered in international media. The New York Times, The Guardian, The Independent, the BBC, Al Jazeera, and Courrier International all reported extensively on the election and its implications for European politics. The contest between Van der Bellen and Hofer was frequently described in terms of the broader struggle between liberal, pro-European forces and right-wing populist movements that defined much of European politics in the mid-2010s.

The annulment of the initial second-round result by the Constitutional Court and the subsequent re-run also attracted global attention, as an unusual event in the democratic politics of a Western European nation. Van der Bellen's ultimately decisive victory in the December 2016 re-run was interpreted by many international observers as a signal that the populist wave sweeping through Western democracies could still be checked at the ballot box.

As president, Van der Bellen has continued to receive international attention through his diplomatic activities, including meetings with heads of state and government from Japan, China, Russia, Lithuania, and at the United Nations.

Legacy

Van der Bellen's presidency and political career represent several notable developments in Austrian and European politics. His election as president marked the first time that a candidate associated with the Green political movement won a directly elected national presidency in the European Union. This achievement was seen as a validation of green and social liberal politics at a time when such movements faced significant challenges from populist and nationalist parties across the continent.

The 2016 presidential election itself — with its razor-thin initial result, unprecedented constitutional court annulment, and decisive re-run — became a significant episode in the history of Austrian democracy. It tested the resilience of Austrian democratic institutions and, in the view of many commentators, ultimately affirmed them. The Constitutional Court's willingness to annul a national election result on procedural grounds, and the orderly conduct of the subsequent re-run, were cited as evidence of the strength of the rule of law in Austria.

Van der Bellen's career arc — from refugee child to professor of economics to parliamentary leader to head of state — has also been noted as emblematic of Austria's postwar transformation into a stable, prosperous, and democratic society. His personal history as the child of refugees who became a naturalized citizen and ultimately the nation's president has carried symbolic resonance, particularly in debates about immigration, citizenship, and national identity in Austria and Europe more broadly.

His consistent advocacy for European integration and European federalism, articulated both in his political career and in his published writings, has positioned Van der Bellen as one of the more prominent pro-European voices among European heads of state. His addresses as president have continued to emphasise the importance of international cooperation, rules-based order, and multilateral institutions.