NEOS held a “medium business meeting” on Friday near the Wels Exhibition Center, where Chancellor and ÖVP leader Karl Nehammer presented his “Austria Plan”. Party leader Beate Meinl-Reisinger took the ÖVP to task and spoke out in favor of quick new elections: “Let’s just stop it.”
Meinl-Reisinger, accompanied by Sepp Schellhorn, who will soon return to the National Council, and member Karin Doppelbauer, struck a clear campaign tone during the networking meeting in a bar in Wels and did not hold back in criticizing the political competition: “They can’t do it anymore.” , ÖVP, SPÖ and Greens are “burned out and without a plan”.
“ÖVP is tired, corrupt”
She criticized the People’s Party particularly sharply: “They are tired” and “corrupt”. She criticized that we are still far from the self-imposed target of a maximum tax rate of 40 percent; in fact, there was a clear trend: every time the ÖVP announced a tax cut, there was an increase afterwards, she illustrated with a graphic board.
In general, their expectations regarding Nehammer’s “Austria plan” are manageable: in the exhibition hall you will probably see “the FPÖ lying down” and hear “many promises”. “They have been doing this very consistently for 37 years now.” The ÖVP has been Minister of Economic Affairs for 37 years – to stand up and say that there is now a regime change in economic policy “is laughable”.
Rejection of Nehammer’s subject setting
Meinl-Reisinger’s message: “The future starts now, there are very specific concerns, very specific concerns”, such as the labor shortage, the compatibility of family and work, energy prices or excessive bureaucracy. She doesn’t want to hear anything from Nehammer about gender, ‘who thinks who is normal’ or about ‘Fortress Austria’. Because people – especially in Upper Austria – live from exports and tourism.
‘Do you want a fortress built? This makes us poorer,” she warned. But she also wants to counterbalance the ‘stress ideas’ of SPÖ leader Andreas Babler. ‘We want relief’, that will cost something and that is why reforms are necessary. “We have to do something about that, otherwise it won’t work. “You have to have this honesty,” just like you have to be honest enough to say “it’s not going to work if everyone only works 30 hours,” Meinl-Reisinger says.
Source: Krone
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
