Austrian Elections & Politics - Version 1.0

[Diouf]

Recently, the ORF decided that the Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Vienna next year.

Actually, Innsbruck and Graz had the better concepts (Innsbruck even offered to pay all the costs that might come up for hosting the event) - but the "red" ORF decided it should be in Vienna (of course to the pleasure of the influential "red" Vienna mayor Michael Häupl from the SPÖ).

Ö24 now speculates that Häupl could call the state election for June 2015, instead of October - so that the SPÖ can benefit from the Song Contest.

In Denmark DR had the choice between a tried and tested arena in Herning which had hosted several huge concerts and big sports tournaments or to completely rebuild an old shipyard building in Copenhagen which had never hosted events like this before, which was located on a small island next to the harbour with quite poor, small and old roads which made it difficult to get there, and where most of the refurbishment had to be destroyed again afterwards so Denmark didn't breach state subsidy rules.
Obviously, DR chose the latter option. Recently, the company which hosted the eurovision, an affiliate of the Copenhagen tourist organisation Wonderful Copenhagen, announced that they had ended up with a loss of 58 mio DKK (7.8 mio euro). The company now wants the Capital Region to cover the loss or else the company will wind up which will leave a lot of local construction companies without payment for their work. It seems like the Capital Region will pay up, but they will probably try to combine it with some sackings or other punishments towards Wonderful Copenhagen. The Liberals in the region has proposed to completely abolish Wonderful Copenhagen, and direct the funds to other similar organizations instead.

Wonderful Copenhagen says that 90 % of the budget loss is due to the fact that refurbishment became far more expensive than expected as it turned out to be "a far more complicated and comprehensive project than expected. Like laying the rails while the train was driving. Wonderful Copenhagen is experienced in making events. The big problem here was that it turned out not to be just an event, but a building project as well. Actually a very very extensive building project. Wonderful Copenhagen should not do these kind of things; this is not where our competences are".

[Diouf]

In little over a week the European Council will have another meeting, and try to decide on, among other things, the new President of European Council. There has been a lot of talk about Helle Thorning-Schmidt in Denmark, but I wondered whether Werner Faymann could not be a quite likely candidate? If Georgieva or another centre-right figure gets the HR post, then a Social Democrat will probably get the European Council post. There are not that many Social Democrat PMs right now, which narrows the field a lot. Unlike HTS, Faymann has governed with the EPP for a long time and comes from a Eurozone country. Furthermore, he seems a bit like a van Rompuy-type personality who is not making a lot of fuss about himself. The European Voice writes:"shortly after he came to power, Ursula Plassnik, the then foreign minister, called him a “man without a character”. A newspaper editorial at the time wrote, “Despite 30 years in politics, Werner Faymann remains a completely blank page.”".

So I would like to know whether this is something which is talked about as possibility in Austria? and which things could count against him? I imagine some Southern countries might see him as Mini-German from a country with strict financial policies, but that could be said about HTS as well. Who will be most likely to take over if Faymann becomes the next president of the European Council?

[Diouf]

Like Georg said: You are really the first in- and outside of Austria to mention such a possibility.

Faymann isn't going anywhere. He rather prefers to smile the whole day ("Smiley-Chancellor") and remain somewhere in the background. Just not touch hot issues ! ("Teflon-Chancellor").

The last thing the EU needs is Faymann and his Entfesselungskünstler-colleague Spindelegger.

OK, I just thought that these are the exact "qualities" looked for in a president for the European Council. Someone who doesn't overshadow the egos of the heads of state and government. Someone who likes to remain in the background sounds a lot like van Rompuy about whom it was said that he "opens his mouth only to breathe". But I guess if he were a possibility, there would have been at certain degree of talks about the possibility in the media.