“Election campaign started” – Meinl-Reisinger blames government: “Is everyone asleep?”

From Meinl-Reisinger’s point of view, Nehammer delivered a speech with no vision for the future and no innovative spirit, but in so doing declared war on his own coalition partner and opened the National Council election campaign. During the election debate, she also identified the Greens with their ‘Climate Happiness’ campaign. The NEOS boss is just as annoyed that they pretend they have the only right to stand up for climate protection: she doesn’t think “this left-wing climate protection” is the right way, you need to make the connection between the environment and the economy.

“It Hurts to See”
In the same breath as the ÖVP, the pink politician also dealt with the SPÖ: “These two old parties are broken,” she said at a press conference. Meinl-Reisinger only told the SPÖ in view of their leadership conflict: “It hurts to see”. Her main point of friction was “the failure of the ÖVP in the federal government over the past 36 years”. The party leader’s speech also revealed that the People’s Party has no answers on how to lower the tax burden. When it comes to education, security issues, or energy, all she can do is wonder, “Are they all asleep?”

With regard to security, she particularly criticized the fact that Chancellor Nehammer, given the “turning point” announced by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, did not want to present a new security policy until 2030. “Either they have a strategy and they don’t say it, or there isn’t one. Both cases are unacceptable,” Meinl-Reisinger stressed.

The NEOS boss’s rebuke for Austrian education policy was fueled by impressions from Finland and Estonia. School autonomy is practiced there, while the school system in this country is based on control. The countries are also much further ahead in terms of digitization, for example in Estonia all schools were connected to the internet in 2001. “We have a quarter of a century to catch up on,” says Meinl-Reisinger.

Politics in Salzburg “no walk in the park”
The NEOS had set itself the goal of bringing Austria back to the top, the party leader himself switched to campaign mode. As proof of her prowess in this area, Meinl-Reisinger was joined by Salzburg NEOS State Councilor Andrea Klambauer, who is due to contest a state election on April 23. She listed the achievements of her term of office, which has been running since 2018, such as the expansion of childcare, cheaper rents in the subsidy area and climate protection through home renovation. All of this was “not a walk in the park” given the ÖVP’s “power system,” Klambauer said.