“We have often fought hard, also to achieve what we promised,” she said in an APA interview. Even after the election, they want to continue to shape things. The chances of a speedy adoption of the long-overdue climate protection law are poor. According to Maurer, it is not part of the most recent agreement with the ÖVP.
Over the past five years, however, laws have been passed in many other areas of climate and nature conservation. She also mentioned the abolition of official secrecy, transparent party coffers, transparency and anti-corruption, the free climate ticket for 18-year-olds and the bottle deposit: “These are key milestones for Austria, and each one was of course hard fought for.” We are governing with a party that we are sometimes far removed from in terms of content, but finding a compromise is the epitome of democracy. Maurer’s conclusion: “I can absolutely stand behind every single decision in this government.”
The Greens recently made a compromise by approving Magnus Brunner (ÖVP) as Austria’s candidate for EU Commissioner. “The ÖVP could not be persuaded to nominate someone independent,” she regretted. In return, however, they were able to reach substantive agreements with the People’s Party. For example, they have now agreed to phase out Russian gas by 2027 in the new security strategy, and the National Energy and Climate Plan is also to be introduced, as is the Renewable Gases Act.
The same applies to outstanding personnel decisions, from the appointment of the board of directors of the Austrian National Bank (OeNB) to appointments to the Federal Administrative Court (BVwG). Things have been blocked here, “and I assume that this knot will be untied in the next few days and weeks.” However, the turquoise-green federal government will probably no longer implement a long-overdue law that the ÖVP is opposed to: The Climate Protection Act, which expired in 2020, is not part of the latest agreement, confirmed Maurer.
The fact that the ÖVP reacted with strong protest to Environment Minister Leonore Gewessler’s approval of the EU Renaturation Act was “absolutely” worth it. With her vote, Gewessler made it possible for this extremely important nature conservation law to be passed at the European level. “The ÖVP wants to concrete and asphalt even more, that is not our policy,” Maurer stressed. A conservative party in particular should actually want to preserve the “miracle of creation,” she said: “These are all conservative-Christian-social ideas, and the fact that people argue against them is a mystery to me.”
The Greens are also expecting little support from the Social Democrats on these issues, because “the SPÖ has consistently always been on the wrong side on these issues.” For Maurer, the distinction between the FPÖ and the FPÖ is clear anyway: “Right-wing extremists are always our opponents,” because they are concerned with the destruction of democracy and have nothing to do with climate protection or social benefits. From Maurer’s point of view, the Greens need not shy away from comparisons with the NEOS, which are favored by many in current coalition discussions. “One thing is clear: when the Greens are in government, it means that something is being implemented,” she said: “The visibility of the NEOS in the governments in which it was involved is, I think, somewhat lower.”
Accordingly, the goal for September 29 is to create “as many mandates as possible.” The framework conditions are “definitely more challenging” than in 2019, when a very good result was achieved in parallel with the international climate movement and the party returned to the National Council. She has no doubts about the unity of the Greens. “We have been able to master every situation well,” Maurer emphasized. And: “We are experienced in every kind of political work.” But she would prefer to see her party in a coalition again, because: “The place for the Greens is in the government.”
