The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

The situation: Inside Austria

2022-01-18T12:13:13.768Z


The committee of inquiry into the corruption scandal involving former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz will soon begin. Due to the role of some entrepreneurs, it should also be of interest to the German audience.


The countdown is on: In a month at the latest, the mailboxes of some MPs will probably be filled with explosive information. The "ÖVP-U-Committee" gave various institutions such as the Court of Auditors or the Federal Office for Anti-Corruption until February 15 to complete preliminary investigations - and the curiosity of the opposition parties is great. There was almost too much going on in Sebastian Kurz's era for all research topics to be brought up. This was already evident in the first sub-committee of this legislative period, the »Ibiza Committee«.

Initially, he was mainly concerned with the main actors of the eponymous Ibiza video, which was revealed by SPIEGEL and "SZ" in May 2019. But the opposition quickly shared the bon mot that the then head of the right-wing FPÖ, Heinz-Christian Strache, had only fantasized about corrupt deals on the Balearic island, while the conservative ÖVP had already put them into practice.

Of course it's not quite that simple: Strache has already been convicted of bribery in the first instance, against which he has appealed;

Against "turquoise" - the color stands for the direction in which Sebastian Kurz has developed his party - ÖVP politicians have not even been charged yet.

And yet the focus of the opposition, but also of the Economic and Corruption Prosecutor's Office (WKStA) has increasingly turned towards Team Kurz in the past year and a half.

Chat, chat, chat

Above all, the smartphone of Thomas Schmid, who was briefly confidant and employed in a central position in the Ministry of Finance, became a gold mine. Three hundred thousand chat messages triggered many an investigation. It got particularly ugly for the ÖVP last fall. It was a double whammy: First, there were house searches on suspicion that Kurz and his team had made a corrupt deal with a major tabloid before he became chancellor. Schmid's chat message: "Who pays, creates. I love it. Brilliant". Then conversations about a tax levy on the entrepreneur Siegfried Wolf became public. Schmid's chat message to a colleague: "Don't forget - you hack (work, editor's note) in the ÖVP cabinet!! You're the whore for the rich!"

The opposition would never have dreamed of such a slogan for the new U-Committee.

That's exactly what it's about now, hope Social Democrats, Liberals and right-wing Liberals: Corrupt or at least immoral special treatment of the rich in the ÖVP environment.

And they are also extremely interesting for the German audience: because anyone pursuing a career in Austria often crosses the border into the large neighboring country.

careers in Germany

Siegfried "Sigi" Wolf alone is a big name in the German automotive industry: He sits on the supervisory board of Porsche, Continental AG, Schaeffler AG and Vitesco Technologies, all of which generate sales in the billions.

A second Austrian who is being investigated: Former Wirecard boss Markus Braun. He had donated money to the ÖVP and was later appointed by Kurz to his think tank Think Austria. The fugitive Jan Marsalek, Braun's colleague on the Wirecard board, was also born in Vienna; just like Alexander Schütz, once a member of the supervisory board of Deutsche Bank. Real estate tycoon René Benko, whose Signa Holding GmbH owns Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, for example, is also a big player in Germany. Benko is said to have influenced a politician from the Viennese Greens, an indictment was brought in – whether there will be a trial is currently being examined.

The presumption of innocence applies to all those named - and the U-Committee wants to read chat messages from all those named: The National Council asked the judiciary to send it all secured chats from the entrepreneurs mentioned.

»Bland«, as they say in this country to describe well-groomed boredom, will certainly not be the case this year.

Social media moment of the week

Florian Gschwandtner, the founder of the start-up Runtastic, which was sold to Adidas, was not boring either: he celebrated a party in Kitzbühel that was not quite Corona-compliant and posted a video of it on his public Instagram profile.

This caused outrage and a great deal of excitement, even Minister of Tourism Elisabeth Köstinger (ÖVP) spoke up.

The balancing act between corona security and winter tourism, which is so economically important, has been a hot topic in Austria since the beginning of the pandemic, since a cluster in Ischgl caused infections in half of Europe.

Stories we recommend you today:

  • The judiciary expect old construction sites, new excitement and a comeback in 2022

    Christina Jilek, co-initiator of the referendum on corruption, is likely to return to the WKStA – complex large-scale proceedings are waiting there

  • New jobs for Kurz and Blümel: family, distorted for recognition

    No cooling-off phase and controversial employers trigger a lot of criticism of the former turquoise figureheads


Kind regards,


your Fabian Schmid

And once again a note on our own behalf: You can order this briefing as a newsletter to your e-mail inbox here.

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2022-01-18

You may like

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-28T06:04:53.137Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.