03. 02. 12. - 15:22

Vienna ÖVP endorses proposed district cuts

Vienna People’s Party (ÖVP) Josefstadt district head Veronika Mickel suggested continuing to speak about a reduction of positions in the city's administration.

Mickel said today (Fri) she considered David Ellensohn’s proposal "worth discussing". The Green Party councillor told the Kurier yesterday Vienna could do without two deputies of each district leader. Ellensohn pointed out that they earned 4,000 Euros before tax a month each. Ellensohn said the other of the city’s 23 districts should consider Hietzing and Penzing as a positive example for efficiency and austerity as the districts shared one building as their main office.

Vienna’s debts – which increased by 1.87 billion Euros to 3.07 billion Euros in 2010 – are expected to rise further due to high spending on job initiatives but also marketing and promotion. Ellensohn said the city should halve the sum it spent on newspaper ads a year to 12.5 million Euros.

Vienna’s Social Democratic (SPÖ) Mayor Michael Häupl announced today he was ready to speak about all kinds of sensible cost reductions and reforms but also criticised Ellensohn. The SPÖ Vienna chief – who became mayor of the capital in 1994 – said he would have appreciated had the councillor contacted him instead of expressing ideas by speaking to the press.

Häupl said he wanted to reform the city’s service law. The mayor explained his intention was to increase public servants’ wages in their first years in the job. Häupl said wages should rise less strongly later on. Many experts consider such a change of payment levels as a reasonable measure to keep the positions’ attractiveness up.

The province of Lower Austria managed to save millions of Euros a year by carrying out a reform of this kind. Lower Austria’s government is headed by Erwin Pröll. The member of the federal ÖVP board is a personal friend of Häupl's. Pröll and the mayor of Vienna are widely seen as the country’s most influential politicians.

SPÖ Chancellor Werner Faymann and ÖVP chief Michael Spindelegger are protégés of the powerful veteran politicians. The government leaders are careful not to fall out with Häupl and Pröll about cost reductions the provinces must introduce in the coming years.

Faymann and Spindelegger agreed about setting up a debt brake last November. The law was passed with a regular majority the following month. SPÖ and ÖVP hoped for enough support for a constitutional law. However, all three opposition parties refused to approve the coalition’s debt limit draft bill.

The government leaders’ decision to choose a strict austerity path for the next five years is linked to the worsening economic climate in Europe. Public opinion group Karmasin found that 64 per cent of Austrians considered the crisis of the Eurozone’s economy as the most important political matter at the moment. Only 14 per cent named immigration issues. Crime and safety concerns – which dominated the headlines for months in 2009 and 2010 when burglary numbers shot up across the country – were mentioned by just nine per cent of the people Karmasin spoke with.

The pollster also found that 23 per cent of people put the most trust in the ÖVP in the crisis. Nineteen per cent said the Social Democrats were most competent in protecting Austria from the economic hurricane. Around 11 per cent named the right-wing Freedom Party (FPÖ). Its leader Heinz-Christian Strache said the coalition should stop cooperating and agree holding elections as soon as possible instead due to its wrong decisions during the crisis. He also claimed Austria may be better off outside the Eurozone. Polls show that the Eurosceptic’s faction could overtake both government parties for first place in the next ballot.

The Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ), the FPÖ’s major rival on the political right, may not garner enough votes to take the four per cent hurdle into parliament in 2013. Public opinion checks see the party at three to four per cent. Only in 2008, the BZÖ bagged almost 11 per cent. It has desperately tried to position itself in the centre of the political spectrum ever since. Controversial statements about criminal foreigners and asylum seekers by far-right members shattered chairman Josef Bucher’s attempts to turn the BZÖ into Austria’s leading liberal movement.