Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen was dismissed on Tuesday from government ministers headed by Chancellor Sebastian Kurtz and ordered them to temporarily fulfill their duties until the formation of a transitional government of the republic, Reuters reported.

Van der Bellen said he would formally relieve the government of its duties at 11:30 a.m. (0930 GMT) on Tuesday but ask ministers to stay on for “a small number of days” until a solution for a new provisional government were found. Vice Chancellor Hartwig Loeger would lead until then, he said.

The reshuffle in the Austrian government occurred after the National Council - lower house of parliament - passed a vote of no confidence on May 27 in connection with the government crisis against the backdrop of the loud resignation of former Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache. Kurtz has now become the most "short-lived" Austrian Chancellor: he was in power in 2017-2019 for 525 days and beat the ex-Chancellor Christian Kern's anti-record, whose powers lasted 580 days in 2016-2017.

In the near future, 53-year-old Loeger will represent Austria at the EU summit in Brussels. Previously, Loeger held for 1.5 years the post of Minister of Finance in the Kurtz government and was also nominated by him for the post of vice-chancellor after the resounding resignation of Heinz-Christian Strache. Prior to joining the Kurtz government, Loeger was not a politician, but a financier. In 2011-2017, he served as Chair of the Board of the largest Austrian insurance company UNIQA.