Before the start of wage negotiations in the fall, NEOS boss Beate Meinl-Reisinger hopes that wages for employees will “rise quite a bit”. This is to be achieved by “paying in advance” to the state and ensuring that employers reduce non-labour costs, Meinl-Reisinger said Monday evening at the start of the ORF “summer talks”.
There is a shortage of skilled workers in sectors such as the service sector. “Real wages can rise considerably there,” says Meinl-Reisinger. To avoid a wage-price spiral, employers, who are also under pressure from the pandemic and rising energy prices, should be relieved by the state. Non-wage labor costs should fall by at least five percentage points.
Meinl-Reisinger continues against price ceiling
When fighting inflation, the NEOS boss again spoke out clearly against price caps: these only led to bottlenecks. Poorer households should be directly supported – not with vouchers, but with cash, for example through a negative tax. Middle-income earners are best helped by abolishing cold progression, not by 1.1 as planned. 2023, but retroactively to early 2022 – and all the way.
‘The state must exert influence on energy suppliers’
In the discussion about the high profits of the energy suppliers, the state must become active, Meinl-Reisinger demanded: “In Austria, most energy suppliers are state-owned. I don’t understand why the state has no influence.” Of course, the end of the merit order could only decouple the price of gas from the price of electricity at European level: “But I have not heard from the Austrian side that you work for it.”
The NEOS boss also doesn’t understand why the federal or state governments, as owners’ representatives, don’t allow energy suppliers to guarantee that a certain portion of the previous year’s energy consumption of an average household will be made available at a lower cost and that the market above it only has to pay the price. If that doesn’t work, the state as the owner could theoretically have the company’s full profits distributed – although that doesn’t make sense at the moment as it now has to invest in renewables.
“If you don’t know what to do anymore, make your own office”
Meinl-Reisinger clearly rejects a separate prosecutor’s office for the prosecution of hate on the Internet. Rather, expertise in the existing authorities should be strengthened. “It’s an Austrian reflex: if you don’t know what to do anymore, you create your own office.” However, the issue of the obligation to use real names needs to be discussed again.
There was no clear statement from the NEOS boss about 100 km/h on the highway. Meinl-Reisinger said it shouldn’t be forbidden to think here, especially now that gasoline is becoming scarce. However, everyone can now drive slower.
Source: Krone
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