conditions
Asked regarding the conditions, the finance minister said: “That it will be clarified.” This also includes rights of inspection in order to enable transparent clarification.
A protective shield such as that in Germany does not yet exist, “because there has been no need in Austria so far,” argued Brunner. In Germany, this protective shield was opened “only following the first case”. A case like that of Wien Energie would also not be covered by the German aid system because speculation would be excluded there.
ORF-Interviewer Armin Wolf confronted Brunner with today’s statements by Peter Weinelt, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Wien Energie, according to which it “no speculations”.
Brunner: “We will clarify that”. However, there are experts who would say so.
“It’s a lot of tax money”
When asked regarding statements by the ÖVP Vienna that Wien Energie’s current liquidity problems were the “biggest financial scandal since the Bawag bankruptcy”, Brunner denied that the financial problems in the SP-led city of Vienna were now being exploited. “It’s not regarding small political change, it’s regarding a lot of tax money,” explained Brunner, comparing the two billion euros with the state budget of Vorarlberg.
It was also asked whether similar risks currently exist with other Austrian energy suppliers. This is “not the case”. The examination by the EC envisaged by Energy Minister Leonore Gewessler (Greens).ontrol will continue to investigate this.
The finance minister spoke himself “definitely” for interventions at European level with regard to the currently galloping energy prices.
Why hasn’t the power brake announced for August been decided yet? Brunner explained that experts were still “working intensively on it”, but recently they had a lot of manpower “in the Saving Wien Energie”.
