Viktor Klima

<h2 id="early-career">Early career</h2>
<p>Born in <a href="/facts/Schwechat/t2HuzuYI">Schwechat</a>, <a href="/facts/Lower_Austria/1IVpdrKx">Lower Austria</a>, Klima started working for the then state-owned <a href="/facts/OMV/95S2FjwP">OMV</a> 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.
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<h2 id="minister">Minister</h2>
<p>Although Klima was then unknown to the majority of Austrians, in 1992, Chancellor <a href="/facts/Franz_Vranitzky/0j1BXmen">Franz Vranitzky</a> made him Minister of Transportation and Nationalised Industry, a position Klima held till 1996, when he became <a href="/facts/List_of_Ministers_of_Finance_(Austria)/D7w2dv5b">Finance Minister</a> for a year.
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<h2 id="chancellor-of-austria">Chancellor of Austria</h2>
<p>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 (<a href="/facts/Social_Democratic_Party_of_Austria/Kf7bMuyQ">Social Democratic Party of Austria</a>, SPÖ) and the <a href="/facts/Austrian_People%2527s_Party/CB4XI01k">Austrian People's Party</a> (ÖVP), with <a href="/facts/Wolfgang_Sch%25C3%25BCssel/qF59mk74">Wolfgang Schüssel</a> serving as his vice chancellor.
</p><p>Influenced by the "<a href="/facts/Third_Way_(centrism)/q9bbL37a">Third Way</a>" strategy of other European leaders such as <a href="/facts/Tony_Blair/3oytaWsP">Tony Blair</a> and <a href="/facts/Gerhard_Schr%25C3%25B6der/QqL5e4c6">Gerhard Schröder</a>, under Klima's chairmanship the Social Democrats continued their move from the political left towards the centre.
</p><p>For example, further <a href="/facts/Privatization/TAtreKqK">privatizations</a> took place, and several public services that had been subsumed under the policies of the <a href="/facts/Welfare_state/JR15sKL1">welfare state</a> were tentatively reduced. As a consequence, a high percentage of the party's traditional <a href="/facts/Working_class/vX7fPNBo">working-class</a> constituency, dissatisfied with Klima and his party, redirected their support to <a href="/facts/J%25C3%25B6rg_Haider/orAyHk9u">Jörg Haider</a>'s populist far-right <a href="/facts/Freedom_Party_of_Austria/FIREz0gd">Freedom Party</a> (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.
</p><p>Following the <a href="/facts/1999_Austria_legislative_election/ebc1GoMr">elections of October 1999</a>, 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 <a href="/facts/Alfred_Gusenbauer/E35h6P54">Alfred Gusenbauer</a>. As chancellor, he was succeeded by <a href="/facts/Wolfgang_Sch%25C3%25BCssel/qF59mk74">Wolfgang Schüssel</a> from the Austrian People's Party, who formed a coalition government with the Freedom Party in February 2000.
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<h2 id="business-career">Business career</h2>
<p>A few weeks later, with the help of his friend <a href="/facts/Gerhard_Schr%25C3%25B6der/QqL5e4c6">Gerhard Schröder</a>, Klima took up a senior management position with <a href="/facts/Volkswagen/LDkDEfDu">Volkswagen</a> 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 <a href="/facts/Business_networking/RHjAFMYJ">networking</a>, a capability he has continued to cultivate on the highest level, such as with Argentina's former president, <a href="/facts/N%25C3%25A9stor_Kirchner/eNrq1y9s">Néstor Kirchner</a> and his predecessor, <a href="/facts/Eduardo_Duhalde/pk0J5b4v">Eduardo Duhalde</a>. Klima retired in 2011 and lives on a cattle farm near Buenos Aires.
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<ul><li>"Austria." Britannica Book of the Year, 2001. <i>Encyclopædia Britannica Online. <a href="/facts/Encyclop%25C3%25A6dia_Britannica/CEyVsjlN">Encyclopædia Britannica</a></i>, 2010. Web. 22 January 2010</li>
<li>"Klima, Viktor (1947-)." <i>Encyclopedia of World Biography</i>. Thomson Gale, 1998</li></ul>

Viktor Klima open-in-new

Viktor Klima