Three years after the Ibiza video: Strache regrets his resignation

Created: 05/18/2022, 11:32 am

By: Stefan Krieger

Austria's ex-vice chancellor emphasizes that he said "nothing dishonest" at the time.

Vienna – It was the biggest political earthquake in Austria in recent decades.

In 2019, the then government of ÖVP and FPÖ burst because of the so-called "Ibiza scandal".

Since then, most people in Austria no longer think of sun and beach when they hear the word Ibiza, but of Heinz-Christian Strache and his confidante Johann Gudenus.

The pictures of the two top politicians on the sofa next to an alleged oligarch's niece went around the world at the time.

The Ibiza video was released three years ago in May.

Since then, what triggered it all has not only occupied Austrian politics, but also the judiciary.

Heinz-Christian Strache: Interview at the location of the "Ibiza scandal"

Heinz-Christian Strache, however, regrets his resignation as head of the right-wing FPÖ in the course of the Ibiza affair.

In the meeting with an alleged niece of a Russian oligarch on the Spanish island, of which hidden recordings led to the fall of the government in Vienna in 2019, he said "nothing dishonest", the ex-vice chancellor emphasized in an interview broadcast on Tuesday evening.

The Austrian broadcaster Puls 24 spoke to Strache in the villa on Ibiza, where he fell into the video trap.

Heinz-Christian Strache: "The resignation was probably my biggest mistake." © Helmut Fohringer/dpa

After the magazine Der Spiegel and the Süddeutsche Zeitung published excerpts of the video in May 2019, Strache retired as a politician.

The conservative-right coalition collapsed.

"The resignation was probably my biggest mistake," Strache said in a TV interview.

He repeatedly drew the alleged oligarch's niece's attention to the laws to be observed.

"Ibiza scandal" indirectly led to the resignation of Sebastian Kurz

In the recordings secretly filmed in 2017, the then opposition Strache spoke with the decoy about donations to party-affiliated clubs, the awarding of infrastructure projects, and the possibility of investing in a high-circulation newspaper and getting rid of unwanted journalists there.

The video led to a series of allegations and investigations, including against politicians from the conservative Chancellor's Party ÖVP.

Sebastian Kurz resigned as head of government and party last year.

Strache was sentenced to probation for bribery in connection with a change in the law in the sense of a friend who was an entrepreneur.

The verdict is not yet legally binding.

At the beginning of June, Strache is again in court for other corruption allegations.

(skr/dpa)