Excerpts from the joint press conference of the leaders of Austria's centre-right People's Party Wolfgang Schuessel and far-right Freedom Party, Joerg Haider. They presented the government manifesto to journalists.

Wolfgang Schuessel first set out the principles behind the agreement: "The document that we have just signed and its content offer a tangible piece of the future."

He explained point by point what's contained in their manifesto.

"First, clear support for the basic values stipulated in the Austrian constitution, in the Austrian jurisdiction, and the European treaties."

"Second, we declare our support for a correct attitude towards our past. We know that a certain reappraisal is required in Austria, and we are aware of that. We will do this in the same sensitive, concerned, and courageous way as different party alliances would have done."

"Third, we declare our clear support for Europe, the EU, also or maybe even in spite of the bitter experiences of the past few days.

"Fourth, as far as the contents are concerned, we want more freedom, more dynamism, more creative power but also more security and solidarity for this country."

Unjustified

The Freedom Party leader, Joerg Haider, said the manifesto did not justify the fears which expressed in advance by the international community.

"The presentation of our government programme, which we negotiated over the past few days, is taking place before the eyes of a critical public and is receiving great international attention.

"Such a new government can prove that some of the expected stances that might have produced the prejudice especially towards one government partner, the Freedom Party of Austria, in the past few weeks and months, that these stances are not part of our government programme."

On Austria's chairmanship of the OSCE, Mr Haider said:

"Together with the federal government, we made it completely clear that we were ready to show great commitment in the area of refugees."

He added: "Austria is the country which has carried the major burden of accepting war refugees from the Balkans - in relation to its size - and which is trying to ensure peace with numerous initiatives. We want to strengthen these efforts in our new function as OSCE chairman."

Direct democracy

Mr Haider went on to outline plans for more direct democracy:

"Something that will also be noted in the government agreement is our clear declaration for the development of democracy in Austria. A very comprehensive chapter has been written on it and developed.

"The point is above all the development of direct democracy. It will be possible to bring about a mandatory referendum if a petition for it is supported by at least 15% of those entitled to vote."

Savings

People's Party leader Wolfgang Schuessel then set out plans for savings in the public sector:

"One ministry will be eliminated. We will reduce official entertainment expenses by 20%. We will reduce the public relations expenditure of the ministries by a similar amount.

"I ask for understanding if advertisements or advertising revenues of the newspapers are reduced by this. But I believe that you will absolutely understand that this is imperative in such a situation. Moreover, we do not want to weaken the state, but make it leaner."

Mr Schuessel said that they planned to slash labour costs.

"We want to free industry of its shackles. We want to reduce labour costs by about ATS15bn ($1.06bn) - precisely calculated. This point, too, has become more ambitious than originally planned.

"There is to be a charter of economic freedoms. And we also demand that the employers and unions are willing to cooperate to bring about a courageous reform of trade and company laws."

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.