The auditors recommend not using public resources to manage the social media accounts of government members whose media owner is a political party. Reference is also made to the German regulation.
One member of the government from each party represented in parliament in 2022 was examined. Those affected were Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP), Vice Chancellor and Minister of Culture Werner Kogler (The Greens), Burgenland’s Governor Hans Peter Doskozil (SPÖ), Upper Austria’s Deputy Governor Manfred Haimbuchner (FPÖ) and Vienna’s Vice Mayor Christoph Wiederkehr (Neos). The period reviewed was January 2020 to June 2022.
Questions of demarcation and conflicts of interest
The overall result: Since employees of the cabinets or the offices of government members helped manage party-political social media accounts in four out of five cases, resources from the state and political parties were mixed. “Questions of demarcation arise that are associated with possible conflicts of interest,” says the Court of Auditors’ report.
In four of the five bodies examined – the Federal Chancellery, the Ministry of Culture, the State of Burgenland and the City of Vienna – the accounts were managed by employees of the cabinets or offices of government members, i.e. by employees of public bodies. This was not the case only in the state of Upper Austria.
In the state of Burgenland, for example, the governor’s office was exclusively responsible for his accounts. In the Federal Chancellery, the Ministry of Culture and the City of Vienna, employees of the cabinets or offices of government members as well as the respective party looked following the accounts. In addition, the deputy mayor of the city of Vienna managed two of his accounts himself.
Government and party work mix
“When employees of public bodies manage party political accounts, the areas of government and party work are mixed,” the Court of Auditors stated. Such overlaps are problematic in terms of transparency and the party law, “since human and/or material resources of the state are used and the political party does not reimburse these costs to the public body.” This problem exists during the active exercise of office until leaving office, which is why clear regulations are required.
It is also important who appears as the media owner on the social media accounts of the selected government members. For average social media users, however, this is only clearly visible on the Vice Chancellor’s account, the report says. The Court of Auditors also found that the Ministry of Culture and the state of Burgenland had not regulated the separation of government and party work in writing.
In its report, the Court of Auditors also refers to Germany’s approach to government public relations work. The guidelines for permissible public relations issued by the German Federal Constitutional Court and the Federal Press Office also apply to social media. According to them, the neutrality requirement and the right to equal opportunities of political parties must be observed.
