IIn Austria there is another corruption charge against the former vice chancellor and chairman of the right-wing FPÖ, Heinz-Christian Strache. The public prosecutor’s office accuses him of having awarded a supervisory board position in the Asfinag motorway company to a real estate company during the “turquoise-blue” government. The consideration is said to have consisted of a donation of 10,000 euros to the FPÖ-affiliated association “Austria in Motion” and an invitation to an event in Dubai. Norbert Hofer (FPÖ), the Minister of Transport at the time and now the third President of the National Council, was responsible for the appointment, but according to media reports, unlike the entrepreneur, he has not been charged.
Strache rejected the accusation that he would “easily be able to refute it in court”. He declined the invitation to Dubai for compliance reasons and never accepted. The former Asfinag supervisory board member Siegfried Stieglitz was appointed by Hofer and dismissed by the current minister Leonore Gewessler (Greens) in 2020. On this occasion he said that he had never donated to a party, but to that association because he liked the purpose of the association, “to support a certain political discourse in Austria”.
Three level excitement
Investigators are also likely to rely on chats between those involved whose cell phones were confiscated. The investigations fit into the picture that emerged after the secretly recorded Ibiza video. As an opposition politician to a fictitious oligarch, Strache said, among other things, that if you give money to certain clubs, you can help a party without publicly appearing as a donor.
This coincided with a great political uproar that arose because of coalition agreements about the distribution of posts that had become known. The distribution was arranged in side agreements to the coalition agreements. This so-called side letter to the 2017 turquoise-blue coalition first became known at the weekend, and then a corresponding secret agreement was also distributed to the 2020 turquoise-green coalition. Both papers, signed by the then party leaders Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) and Strache (then FPÖ) or Kurz and Werner Kogler (Greens), deal with offices and supreme judges, executive boards and supervisory boards of state and partially state-owned companies, as well as the ORF.
The excitement has three levels. On the one hand, the accusation of “job scrounging” is generally raised, especially by the opposition. From the social democratic side it was said that “once again the self-image of the Turkish system becomes clear, to abuse the borrowed power exclusively for party political purposes”. The ÖVP countered this coolly by pointing out that such agreements had accompanied all grand coalitions, including those led by the SPÖ, since the war, only that they were not previously called “sideletters”. Green leader Kogler said: “We were new to the government, but not naive. If you want to prevent the Turkish ÖVP from occupying all positions, as a smaller coalition partner you need an agreement on how to proceed.”
Criticism of secrecy and style
The second level is the institutions concerned. In companies in which the supervisory board is actually responsible for appointing the executive board, there is a gap between legal and political reality. For example, the 2017 paper says: “The board of directors of the investment company is nominated by the ÖVP.” Kurz later said in the sub-committee that he was in the appointment – as Thomas Schmid had expected for a long time – only “in the sense of informed”. The public prosecutor’s office is investigating false testimony, which Kurz denies. Protest calls now also came from the ORF. Turquoise-green divided up the directorships, turquoise-blue even management functions by name, deep down into the journalistic field. The editorial board called for legal changes to strengthen journalistic independence.
Third, there is unrest in the coalition and within the Green Party. There is criticism of secrecy and style. The party leadership is defended by the majority of deputies and state branches. On the other hand, the publication of this coalition agreement is seen as a “foul”, the originators of which are seen as the supporters of Sebastian Kurz, who was eliminated not least under pressure from the Greens. There they probably want to distract from the upcoming “ÖVP Corruption Committee”. However, it can also be heard that today’s Chancellor and ÖVP leader Karl Nehammer is probably innocent and that we can continue to work together.
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