This article focuses on the impact of liberal ideas on Austrian politics. Particular attention is devoted to the conservative-liberal coalition lead by Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel, who ruled in 2000–2006. The author presents the sources of the Austrian Chancellor’s ideological inspirations and confronts the ideas declared by him and his coalition with reality. Schüssel’s rule is described from a broader perspective in order to answer the question of whether the time of the neoliberal „breakthrough” was indeed a breakthrough, and how much of that has been left in Austrian politics?