Kurz proposes FM replace him as Austria chancellor

SEIBERSDORF: Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said on Saturday that he plans to step down in an effort to defuse a government crisis triggered by prosecutors' announcement that he is a target of a corruption investigation.

Kurz, 35, said he has proposed that Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg replace him. But Kurz himself will remain in frontline politics: he said he will become the head of his conservative Austrian People's Party's parliamentary group.

Kurz's party had closed ranks behind him after the prosecutors' announcement on Wednesday. But its junior coalition partner, the Greens, said Friday that Kurz couldn't remain as chancellor and demanded that his party nominate an “irreproachable person” to replace him.