New elections will be enforced on Wednesday. Thomas Schmid will deal with the ÖVP on Thursday.
On All Souls’ Day, a confrontation between the government and the opposition in the House of Representatives is imminent. Because for the first time, all opposition parties – now also NEOS boss Beate Meinl-Reisinger – are up for new elections. The reason for the special session was the recently announced confession of the former Secretary General of the Ministry of Finance, Thomas Schmid, to the Public Prosecution Service for Economic Affairs and Corruption.
Opposition calls for new elections
The Turquoises and the Greens want to move forward, but the necessary signals to anti-corruption laws are progressing slowly.
The question of the day on Wednesday is: Will Chancellor Karl Nehammer stick to his position that the red line for him is criminal law? Even Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen is said to have recently tried to convince the chancellor in a one-on-one conversation that this argument was no longer sufficient with a view to the confession.
Bunker mentality predominates in the ÖVP
In the ÖVP, on the other hand, there is a dangerous bunker mood. Don’t let every interrogation be recorded without any evidence forcing you to take a new line. Some high-ranking VPers are already convinced that there is nothing new in the testimony protocols that was not already known from the chat protocols. The population is really only annoyed by other concerns. So why show the will to reform? “It will not be possible to dive through. Because even if the citizens currently have other problems, this negative news will come on top,” political expert Thomas Hofer describes the mood in the country.
On Wednesday, the opposition will make a hard reckoning with the ÖVP system, and the government can only watch. “It’s not the end of the road yet. You can already see a change of strategy in the NEOS on migration issues to get votes in the ÖVP camp,” Hofer said.
24 hours after the special session, the next reckoning awaits the ÖVP in the subcommittee. This time it was Thomas Schmid who was able to repeat his confession of life, this time under the obligation to tell the truth. In the run-up there were heated discussions because the WKStA wanted to agree a questionnaire with the House of Representatives so as not to jeopardize the investigations. However, the ÖVP surrenders. “This appearance makes the corruption problems of the ÖVP visible again,” Hofer said.
Source: Krone
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