With the higher salaries of politicians from January 1, 2023 (plus 5.3 percent), Austria has a new – hotly debated – topic. The individual political groups in Parliament also differ on this point. While the governing parties and NEOS want to stick to the regular increase, there is opposition from the SPÖ and FPÖ. The social democrats want top politicians to be suspended, the PVV advocates a round of zero wages or cutbacks for ministers. Blue Secretary-General Michael Schnedlitz describes the increase determined by the Court as “absurd”.
The Court of Auditors (RH) published this legal increase on Thursday in the Official Journal of the “Wiener Zeitung”. Unless the National Council decides otherwise, the increase will take effect on 1 January 2023.
ÖVP: “Lowest value of all occupational groups”
This has “the lowest value of all occupational groups”, according to the ÖVP club. The factor stated by the RH affects “all politicians in the country, for example the approximately 2100 mayors in the municipalities”. “The increase is provided for by law and must be done as such,” says the Green Club in the same vein. Deputy NEOS club president Nikolaus Scherak pointed out in the Ö1 “Mittagsjournal” that there was a clear legal regulation for the calculation of the adjustment factor. Otherwise it would be “absurd” for MPs to negotiate an increase with themselves.
FPÖ announces application
The situation for FPÖ Secretary General Michael Schnedlitz is also “absurd” – from his point of view, however, that politicians receive a salary increase of up to 1344 euros a month, “while the population sometimes can no longer afford to go to work”. The FPÖ therefore announced a motion that would declare members of the National Council a zero wage round and members of the government a pay cut.
SPÖ: Mayors and city councils should get an increase
The SPÖ only wants to suspend inflation compensation for top politicians, said deputy club president Jörg Leichtfried, also in the “Mittagsjournal”. Mayors and municipal councils should receive the regular increase.
The starting point of the “benefit pyramid” is the income of the members of the National Council. Next year you will receive 9873 euros gross per month – 497 euros more than this year (all values rounded to whole euros, please note). Based on their salaries, the system established after several fee scandals in 1997 also calculates the salaries of other politicians – with a certain limitation: because a zero-wage round was decided for 2021 for federal politicians up to the level of the club president and for the ombudsman and the RH chairman applies a different starting value for the increase of 5.3 percent, namely 9536 euros.
RH: No leeway in determining increments
President of the Audit Chamber Margit Kraker has no leeway in determining salary increases. They result from a statutory adjustment factor. This corresponds either to the inflation in the period from July last year to June of the current year or to the ASVG pension increase for the following year. The lower value is used. For 2023 that was an inflation rate of 5.3 percent (corresponding to a correction factor of 1.053), the ASVG value was 5.8 percent.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
