Life and Death in Austria [MEGATHREAD]

[Liep]

http://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/lifestyles/patrick-park-may-get-realize-dream-austrian-ambassador/beWzYkOb7tfVugHw4JXqeI/

Patrick Park is an avid fan of "The Sound of Music." You might say he's obsessed with it.
"Really, I've seen it like 75 times," the concert pianist/industrialist said.

"I know every single word and song by heart. I've always wanted to live in the Von Trapp house."

Well, if he can't live there, at least he'll be close enough to visit.

Park has received unofficial word from President Donald Trump — well, as unofficial as a handwritten note saying "on to your next chapter, Ambassador!" can be — that he is the president's choice to be U.S. ambassador to Austria.

The president said he thought it would be a good match for Park because it is steeped in musical culture.

Uh uh! I hope we get an ambassador who's obsessed with Lego. We'll get James May to build him a house.

[Syt]

Not very shocked. The ambassadors to Austria by previous presidents were usually campaign contributors with tenuous links and/or little knowledge about Austria. It's a cushy job in a nice country with comparatively little to do compared to, say, UK, Russia, or Germany.

[garbon]

He sounds like a child in that article. What adults says things like that.

[Syt]

Reviving this thread for all things Austria.

There were state elections in Styria last weekend. The FPÖ in the city of Graz (capital of Styria) has been mired in a huge scandal. One of the vice mayors is being investigated for funneling public and party funds into private pockets (with one purchase being a penis pump, apparently, besides luxury trips etc.). Investigations has turned stones and found a whole bunch of creepy crawlies underneath. One FPÖ guy had child sexual abuse images on his laptop. Another (who left, but his brother is still in FPÖ) had a meth lab in Graz. There's €1.8 million disappeared. One was hoarding nazi propaganda and artifacts and taking inspiration from them. And one witness committed suicide.

Of course the FPÖ won the election in a landslide, doubling their result from 5 years ago and became the strongest party.

[Syt]

On the plus side, it seems that coalition talks for a Federal government between ÖVP, SPÖ, and NEOS are well underway. In large part it's not so much that the ÖVP wouldn't work with FPÖ at all, but that Kickl has pissed off everybody too much to work with him (for now, anyways).

[Syt]

Coalition talks have failed after NEOS withdrew. They wanted to increase VAT from 20 to 22 percent, increase the pension age to 67 over the next decade or so and pushing back political influence in the media (e.g. political parties getting to appoint people within the state broadcaster ORF board, limiting the government ad budget which is a main income source for esp. news media) and reforming the federal system in Austria which is often severely limiting what the federal government can accomplish against the will of the (sometimes deeply entrenched) nine local state heads.

NEOS primarily blame the Social Democracts who were against the first two points and were pushing to instead introduce moderate taxes on very high incomes and/or assets. Both Social Democrats and Conservatives were pushing back against the other points.

SPÖ and ÖVP briefly kept talking, but ÖVP broke it off now, and Chancellor Nehammer is resigning.

Unclear what's going to happen next. The President could appoint an "expert" (i.e. independent) chancellor who will assemble a cabinet of other "neutrals" to run an interim government, forming majorities in parliament as required. This happened after the tumultuous exit of Sebastian Kurz, and while it only lasted half a year, that government saw through a decent amount of laws and generally the population were happy with the performance.

Alternatively, ÖVP/FPÖ could enter talks again - Nehammer was the most vocal opponent of working with Kickl's FPÖ; others might not feel so strongly. Not least since a recent poll shows that the FPÖ would get ca. 10% more votes than in the most recent election - and almost all of those votes would come from the ÖVP.

Of course, Sebastian Kurz might still make his comeback which has been hovering like a cloud above all this.

2025 is really off to a "great" start.

[Syt]

The biggest government challenge is currently a big budget gap. As is to be expected, the parties have different approaches. The Social Democrats wants to levy more strongly from the more affluent parts of society (wealthy individuals, banks, stock market profits) while Conservatives instead look at cutting costs e.g. in health insurance, welfare. FPÖ ... mostly wants to pay less money to immigrants, I guess? Austria had some of the highest inflation rates in the Euro currency zones in recent years, so any government measure that further cuts into people's wallets will be extremely unpopular. I guess I'm glad I don't have to make those decisions.

[Syt]

Kickl has been tasked with forming a government by the president. So I guess we'll have an FPÖ-led coalition with the ÖVP.

If previous governments with FPÖ participation are anything to go by, they will implode amongst scandals within 2-6 years, then become a non-factor for 5-10 years before rising back to the top again.

Meanwhile ÖVP keeps saying the SPÖ was unwilling to compromise which blew up their coalition talks. The SPÖ says the powerful business-wing of the ÖVP sabotaged the talks from the start. (They had gone on record that they see the FPÖ as the more compatible candidate in terms of economic policies which Nehammer who's from the ÖVP labor wing was against.)

In the interim, I guess there will be a Fico-Orban-Kickl threesome fucking over EU politics.

[Zanza]

Good thing I left Austria this morning. Granted, I was only there for skiing, but anyway.

Kickl does not seem to have the charisma of Haider (or even HC Strache). Let's see what he is able to do.

I wonder if we are looking at a similar situation in Germany after the federal election in February.

By the way, there is an interesting podcast called Ehrenwort, about big and small scandals. It feels like every third case they discuss is from Austria. 

[Syt]

Kickl doesn't have the charisma of Haider or even Strache, true. But for 10+ years he's been the "brains" in the background.

He's also the one who used police from the department for street crimes (which was under oversight of an FPÖ member) to raid the internal intelligence service in 2018 where a lot of material about far-right groups close to the FPÖ was confiscated on charges that supposedly members of the bureau had leaked such information to the media (which is not exactly uncommon in Austria).

Among the confiscated material was e.g. an email where known neo-nazi and holocaust denier Küssel invited several prominent right wing politicians, including the FPÖ man who was leading the raid - it was notable because the email was confiscated from an employee of the bureau who was not under the purview of the raid. There have not been significant consequences for these actions (the bureau itself was dissolved after the 2020 terrorist attacks and a new office was formed), really.

[Syt]

The FPÖ promised to significantly lower the tax burdens on businesses and corporations, driving cars and households. This includes (for example) cutting the tax on profits of smaller businesses from 23% to 10%, removing the CO2 tax on fuels, lwoering the oil tax and putting a price cap on fuels in case of price hikes, and reducing taxes on the income for working overtime. Overall, this would run in the amount of 20-30 billion Euros less income for the state. They didn't really specify how to finance this.

Meanwhile, the EU budget rules require Austria to cut the budet deficit by 4 billion Euros. Something they could reach by cutting e.g. the subsidies that go into climate change mitigation, including incentives to use public transports, subsidies for businesses to switch to more sustainable methods and the expansion of renewable energies - but then there's still the promises they made pre-election.

[Syt]

If I had a nickel every time an ÖVP chancellor resigns and Alexander Schallenberg takes over as temporary chancellor for a few weeks, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't much, but it's weird that it happened twice.

[Zanza]

Read an article that suggested Kickl wants new elections (as FPÖ polls at 40%) and that he wants to take revenge against the ÖVP. Let's see if they actually are able to form a government.