2024-04-17 14:36:52
All parties criticize the role of the Freedom Party in the affair surrounding the sale of secret information. The FPÖ speaks of “disinformation from the unity party”.
The introduction of a vacancy tax for apartments, the craftsmen’s bonus and the reorganization of teacher training are on the National Council’s agenda on Wednesday. But the debates revolve around a different topic: the espionage affair surrounding Egisto Ott and the alleged sale of secret information to Russia are heating up people’s minds.
The ÖVP brought up the topic right at the beginning of the “Aktuellestunde”. It’s regarding a reckoning with the FPÖ; the People’s Party has been focusing on the issue for days. Secretary General Christian Stocker launches the attacks: State security was destroyed under Interior Minister Herbert Kickl. Today it is clear that a network around the suspected spy Egisto Ott laid the foundations for the raid BVT delivered and this network had close connections to the FPÖ.
Lots of tablets in circulation
Stocker presents the network he suspects graphically; on a board you can see the connections from Ott to FPÖ members and from these to Kickl. The FPÖ has also prepared tables showing the well-known photo of ex-Wirecard boss Jan Marsalek with ÖVP National Council President Wolfgang Sobotka. The FPÖ is actually a Russian Trojan, says Stocker. “The only question is whether it’s a Trojan horse or a Trojan donkey.”
The Green Club boss Sigrid Maurer also agrees with the anti-Kickl strategy. She criticizes the “wanton destruction of the state security service” through the raids under Kickl as Interior Minister. She denies the FPÖ close ties to Russia and points to the friendship treaty with Putin’s party United Russia. Contrary to the statements of the FPÖ, this is “still upheld”. “Yes, where is the termination?” Maurer asks the FPÖ and accuses them of being unreliable on this question.
SPÖ and Neos approach the issue in a slightly more differentiated way. They also target the FPÖ – but not just them. SPÖ security spokesman Reinhold Einwallner speaks of an “unworthy spectacle” that the FPÖ and ÖVP, who have led the Interior Ministry for 24 years, are now shifting responsibility back and forth. He reminds the ÖVP that today’s Chancellor Karl Nehammer, as ÖVP General Secretary, publicly supported the BVT raid.
“ÖVP’s abandonment of children”
“It is unbelievable how they are rewriting history and shirking responsibility,” says Neos mandate Stephanie Krisper, accusing the ÖVP of “abandoning children”. After all, it was the ÖVP that brought the FPÖ into government and also allowed Kickl to become interior minister.
And the FPÖ? Party leader Herbert Kickl sits in his usual place in the front row together with Third National Council President Norbert Hofer, appears to be in a good mood and grinning, and attracts attention with numerous heckles. He is not on the list of speakers, but then spontaneously goes to the podium to counter with a very emotional speech. This is not a current hour, but the “hour of disinformation from the unity party,” he says.
What is the truth from his perspective? That at the time he took office as Interior Minister, the BVT was a “neglected, run-down institution” characterized by sloppiness. This “disastrous situation” was the result of decades of ÖVP responsibility in this area, which created the “breeding ground” for the outflow of information. The raid on the BVT was the responsibility of the judiciary and not that of the Interior Minister; the complaint by his Secretary General that led to it was not an attack, but the “fulfillment of a legal duty”. “Yes, you don’t know that,” said Kickl to the MPs, his volume now clearly raised. “That’s just pathetic.”
Vacancy tax and speed limit 30
There are also content-related decisions. The National Council, with the consent of the SPÖ, decides that the states can in future collect an effective vacancy tax. Corresponding taxes already apply in most countries, but they can only be imposed to a limited extent. The federal government is now essentially releasing the levy. Several countries have already announced that they will make use of it.
There are also more rights for the municipalities; in the future they will be able to impose a speed limit of 30 more easily. According to the text of the law, the authority can reduce the maximum permitted speed in local areas in areas with a special need for protection, such as schools, kindergartens, hospitals or senior citizens’ facilities, provided the measure is suitable for increasing road safety for pedestrians or cyclists.
Claudia Plakolm (ÖVP) can now officially become State Secretary for Digitalization. The Federal Ministries Act was changed accordingly.
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