The affair involving suspected Russian spies at the Austrian Office for the Protection of the Constitution is increasingly becoming the biggest espionage scandal in recent history. The revelations have the potential to become a defining issue in the National Council election campaign. Politicians are agitated accordingly. The National Security Council will consider the matter on Tuesday evening.
The party representatives march into the meeting, which takes place in the listening room of parliament, with great enthusiasm. The Chancellor’s ÖVP party is only trying to pass the matter on to the FPÖ. The People’s Party has long described FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl as a ‘security risk’ and now sees itself as 100 percent confirmed.
FPÖ points to the ÖVP
The spy thriller will also be a major topic in the upcoming meetings of the second investigative committee into the red-blue abuse of power. Kickl is questioned as a witness. ÖVP faction leader Andreas Hanger believes he has found evidence that Kickl, as then Minister of the Interior, gave suspected spy Egisto Ott a central role in the reorganization of the secret service after the raid on the BVT. The FPÖ rejects this and repeatedly emphasizes that the spy cell in the BVT was established under the leadership of the ÖVP Minister of the Interior and BVT boss Peter Gridling, who is considered close to the ÖVP. Gridling was brought into the BVT by Günther Platter, who later became governor of Tyrol.
SPÖ does not trust Chancellor Nehammer
For the SPÖ, the FPÖ and the ÖVP are equally involved. “We do not trust Chancellor Karl Nehammer. His party held responsibility at the Ministry of the Interior for decades and transferred it to Kickl. Nehammer himself approved of Kickl’s destruction of the BVT in 2018. “The National Security Council has become a stage,” security spokesman Reinhold Einwallner told “Krone”.
The Commission must investigate the constitutional service
He calls for the convening of a new Zerbes committee to check whether the new DSN, unlike the BVT, is safe against such spy networks. As part of the reform of the intelligence services, the SPÖ pushed through a parliamentary control committee that can review the DSN at any time. Ingeborg Zerbes is currently chairman of this committee, which has already investigated the failure of the Ministry of the Interior in the terrorist attack in Vienna. “Unlike the Chancellor, the Commission has our trust and is the path we will take to make Austria safer,” Einwallner said.
Pinke calls for a new security strategy
The Neos will present a motion at the meeting to update the Austrian security strategy. The currently applicable 2013 strategy still describes Russia as Austria’s essential and strategic partner, Secretary General Douglas Hoyos criticizes. The government parties have not yet managed to reach agreement on the full content of a new strategy. According to reports, this is an issue of energy security.
The FPÖ’s relations with Russia also put the Greens in the spotlight. For the green faction leader in the U Commission, Meri Disoski, the FPÖ is “a danger to our democracy”.
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.
