The Austrian Chancellor, Dr Wolfgang Schussel, said his new government would try to compensate victims of Nazi slave labour as quickly as possible.
As part of his efforts to prevent Austria from becoming isolated because of the presence of Dr Jorg Haider's far-right Freedom Party in the Cabinet, Dr Schussel also announced the appointment of a government co-ordinator for compensation claims.
Germany's Greens said they wanted Dr Schussel to testify before a parliamentary inquiry into a funding scandal surrounding the former German leader, Dr Helmut Kohl.
French government ministers discussed unspecified further measures to isolate Austria, beyond those already agreed by Austria's 14 European Union partners.
The former Austrian chancellor, Dr Franz Vranitzky, a Social Democrat, said he was quitting as Austria's representative on an EU committee drawing up a human rights charter, because of the cabinet issue.
Presenting his new government programme to parliament, Dr Schussel named the former Austrian National Bank president, Ms Maria Schaumayer, as co-ordinator in charge of Nazi compensation claims.
"The new government will press for former Nazi slave labourers, who after all are now at an age where they need help quickly, to get justice," Dr Schussel said.
Austria was incorporated into Adolf Hitler's Third Reich in 1938. Companies involved in the use of slave labour will be expected to contribute to compensation.
Austria's EU partners have threatened to freeze bilateral political contacts, deny Austrian ambassadors access to government ministers and withhold support from Austrians seeking jobs in international organisations.
Dr Schussel outlined a programme of free market reforms and budget consolidation and pledged to cut bureaucracy, but he devoted much of his speech to trying to allay foreign concerns.
"Austria today is a stable democracy," he said. "Despite the current demonstrations, radical outbursts which are the norm in many other countries have been as rare in the Second Republic as major strikes or conflicts with minorities . . . This Austria has not changed in the last few days."
Meanwhile, politicians and a local newspaper in the western Austrian town of Braunau said they had launched a campaign to buy the house in which Hitler was born and turn it into a place of reconciliation.
In a statement issued by the Braunauer Rundschau newspaper, the campaigners said they wanted the government and the EU to pay for the project.
Since 1977 the house has been used as a workshop for mentally disabled people but it has also provided a focal point for neo-Nazi commemorations of Hitler's birth on April 20th, 1889.
The US ambassador to Austria, summoned home over the Freedom Party issue, is to return to Vienna this week, the US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, said yesterday.