The espionage affair surrounding the former secret service agents Egisto Ott and Martin W. as well as the former Wirecard manager Jan Marsalek is shaking Austria.
In an initial assessment, experts see particular problems in counter-espionage. Some traces in the affair lead to the FPÖ. The situation put a strain on cooperation in the so-called “Berner Club”, an unofficial exchange body of European intelligence services. The BVT left after the house search and was dissolved soon afterwards. The successor authority, the Directorate of State Security and Intelligence (DSN), must now deal with the “BVT affair’s “difficult legacy, says Paul Schliefsteiner, lawyer and director of the Austrian Center for Intelligence, Propaganda and Security Studies (ACIPSS), a research center in Graz. “On paper,” the reform of the domestic intelligence service DSN is complete, said the lawyer. But the authority is suffering from “a noticeable staff fluctuation” and must continue to prove its reliability to its European partners.