Austrian Elections & Politics 4.0

[Tender Branson]

The FPÖ has suffered an embarrassing "defeat" at the start of their campaign for the April 22 state election here in Salzburg:

http://salzburg.orf.at/news/stories/2901377

They re-branded their campaign cars with an image of the state FPÖ-leader Marlene Svazek on them and a slogan called "You simply have to like Marlene."



Problem: that's almost the same slogan used by "Manner" wavers and their chocolate/hazelnut products. The company announced they would sue the FPÖ if they are not removing the slogan. The FPÖ has announced today that they will remove the slogan ...

[Tender Branson]

Other recent stuff:

* Kurz/Strache/VdB and all major politicians commemmorated the 80th anniversary of the Austrian Anschluss (= annexation) to Germany and Hitler's speech to about 200.000 people in Vienna today. They also announced the creation of a new Holocaust memorial in Vienna + they are starting work on allowing up to 200.000 former Austrian Jewish residents who emigrated or were forced to leave to re-claim Austrian citizenship more easily.

* The SPÖ (who won the Carinthia state election recently with 48%), had hours-long exploratory talks with FPÖ, ÖVP and Team Carinthia this week. They will decide on Saturday with whom they are entering actual coalition talks.

* The intelligence agency scandal remains absurd. FPÖ-Interior Minister Kickl suspended the BVT's leader until the abuse of power case if solved, despite President VdB already confirming the head for another 5 years. In a press conference, Kickl was talking about an hour about tougher measures on asylum seekers and how he wants to speed up deportations and at the end announced that the head of the BVT is now suspended from work (he's appealing). I think it is pretty clear that Kickl and the FPÖ want to somehow remove the SPÖ-leaning Gridling from office and re-shape the intelligence services with FPÖ-people. An investigation committee is imminent next week and Kickl himself could have committed abuse of power and could be charged later on ...

* The defense budget will only get a minimum raise in the double budgets for 2018-19. The FPÖ wanted an increase to 1% of GDP, but it will actually only increase by a few millions to cover costs for those employed and some procurements. In other words: it will remain at 0.6% of GDP for the next two years and only increase to 0.7% in 2020.

[DavidB.]

* Kurz/Strache/VdB and all major politicians commemmorated the 80th anniversary of the Austrian Anschluss (= annexation) to Germany and Hitler's speech to about 200.000 people in Vienna today. They also announced the creation of a new Holocaust memorial in Vienna + they are starting work on allowing up to 200.000 former Austrian Jewish residents who emigrated or were forced to leave to re-claim Austrian citizenship more easily.

Great news! I'll totally do this if a) I can keep my Dutch passport (in order for that to be the case, there probably has to be some legal clause that my grandfather never lost his Austrian citizenship and my mother and I therefore always had it) and b) I don't have to serve in the Austrian army.

[Tender Branson]

More trouble for the Salzburg-FPÖ ahead of the state election.

Their frontrunner for the district of Tennengau was once actice in the Neo-Nazi NDP in the 1980s. The party was then banned and dissolved in 1988 for being too far to the right and violating Austrian anti-Nazi laws.

https://twitter.com/sn_aktuell/status/973854917319311360

https://twitter.com/sn_aktuell/status/974221304646705152

[MAINEiac4434]

I'm shocked, shocked, to find out there are Nazis in the modern FPOe.

[Tender Branson]

The Constitutional Court has dealt a big blow to ÖVP-FPÖ this week on the issue of migrant/asylum seeker welfare payment caps:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-austria-politics-benefits/austrian-court-deals-blow-to-governments-plan-to-cut-benefits-idUSKCN1GO25B

Bad decision in my opinion. Austrians who have paid into the system for a long time need to get more welfare payment than any person who simply decides to immigrate here.

[Tender Branson]

* Kurz/Strache/VdB and all major politicians commemmorated the 80th anniversary of the Austrian Anschluss (= annexation) to Germany and Hitler's speech to about 200.000 people in Vienna today. They also announced the creation of a new Holocaust memorial in Vienna + they are starting work on allowing up to 200.000 former Austrian Jewish residents who emigrated or were forced to leave to re-claim Austrian citizenship more easily.

Great news! I'll totally do this if a) I can keep my Dutch passport (in order for that to be the case, there probably has to be some legal clause that my grandfather never lost his Austrian citizenship and my mother and I therefore always had it) and b) I don't have to serve in the Austrian army.

Well, if he had citizenship at some point, there's a good chance that you'd be eligible to re-claim it under the new plans that are being worked out.

And b) acquiring citizenship also carries some duties such as serving in the military. But you could also choose to do civil service instead (Red Cross etc.), like I did.

[Tender Branson]

All signs are pointing to an SPÖVP coalition in Carinthia.

https://derstandard.at/2000076285023/Kaernten-Kaiser-erwartet-Mehrheit-fuer-Verhandlungen-mit-OeVP

The final decision by the SPÖ will come tomorrow. The SPÖ got 48% (+11%) in the recent state election, the ÖVP 16% (+1%).

[Tender Branson]

The 2018-19 double budget will be presented next week with a speech in parliament by Finance Minister Hartwig Löger (ÖVP).



Meanwhile, new details have emerged:

The budget for 2018 will likely see a deficit of 0.5% of GDP and 2019 will be balanced or see a small surplus. The budget proposals are always made in a more conservative manner and because the economy is really strong this year, there might already be a balanced budget this year and a nice surplus next year.

There will be more money for education, science and R&D (+10%), as well as disabled people and care for the elderly (which is now completely funded by the state rather than tapping into the personal assests of the people involved) and more funding for health care, a first tax-reduction for small & medium income earners (the big one is planned for 2020), a big tax cut for families (1800€ per child and year) and a tax cut for the tourism industry.

On the other hand, there will be significant cuts for foreigners and asylum seekers (their numbers have fallen anyway, so less money is needed), integration measures for them on the labour market, German lessons etc. - cuts are worth 1 Bio. € a year and make up the lions share of the overall cuts of 2.5 Bio. € per year. The Labour Market Agency will get a bigger base budget to cover costs for their employees, but their remaining budet for training measures etc. (especially for foreigners) will be cut significantly. As there are now fewer unemployed in general due to the better economy, these cuts make sense - just like the cuts for the foreigners.

Also, the FPÖ-led military will get only a small raise. Norbert Hofer's infrastructure ministry has to cut spending by 200 Mio. € per year. The remaining cuts will be accross the board in every ministry and will involve administrative cuts and fewer new hirings for those civil servants that are retiring (excl. police officers) etc.

https://derstandard.at/2000076301297/Das-Match-der-Spindoktoren-vor-der-Budgetrede

https://derstandard.at/2000076235252/Sparen-fuer-das-tuerkis-blaue-Prestigeprojekt-namens-Entlastung

http://www.nachrichten.at/nachrichten/politik/innenpolitik/Details-zu-Budget-Plaenen-Regierung-spart-besonders-bei-Integration;art385,2843730

http://www.kleinezeitung.at/service/newsticker/5389947/Starkes-Wachstum-und-Einsparungen-sollen-Nulldefzit-bringen

[Tender Branson]

Meanwhile, the new "Profil" magazine poll:

31% ÖVP
28% SPÖ
25% FPÖ
  7% NEOS
  6% Greens
  3% LiPi

https://www.profil.at/oesterreich/umfrage-regierung-9472705

[Tender Branson]

The ÖVP-Salzburg is out with posters for the state election, featuring the popular Governor Haslauer:

 

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And a flyer with main policy proposals that is likely sent to all households before the election:

[Tender Branson]

All signs are pointing to an SPÖVP coalition in Carinthia.

https://derstandard.at/2000076285023/Kaernten-Kaiser-erwartet-Mehrheit-fuer-Verhandlungen-mit-OeVP

The final decision by the SPÖ will come tomorrow. The SPÖ got 48% (+11%) in the recent state election, the ÖVP 16% (+1%).

And indeed: the SPÖ-Carinthia leadership team just announced the ÖVP as their preferred coalition partner. Intense talks will start next week and the new government should be ready by early April.

[Tender Branson]

Between April 7-12, FPÖ-leader Strache will become acting Chancellor of Austria.

Why ?

Because of a HUGE Austrian state visit to China by Chancellor Kurz, President Van der Bellen and several cabinet members, such as the Minister for Economy, Agriculture and Sustainability, Foreign Affairs and Transport/Infrastructure + a delegation of 250 business leaders, scientists and other experts.

This will be the largest state visit ever.

http://www.kleinezeitung.at/politik/innenpolitik/5391663/Kurz-auf-ChinaReise_FPOeChef-Strache-wird-fuer-eine-Woche-zum

Theoretically, Strache/FPÖ could stage a coup d'etat while they are abroad: With Strache as acting Chancellor and both the real Chancellor and President out of the country, the FPÖ-led Interior Ministry (= Police) and Defense Ministry could take over the country in the meantime.

[Tender Branson]

Tyrol:

ÖVP-Greens 2.0 was announced today. Coalition talks are finished and party committees will vote on the coalition deal.

Link

Also:

The SPÖ has launched a parliamentary investigation committee to investigate the shady/absurd FPÖ intelligence services scandal:

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/austrian-parliament-probe-intelligence-scandal-172323368.html

https://derstandard.at/2000076514146/SPOe-setzt-U-Ausschuss-zur-Causa-Verfassungsschutz-im-Alleingang-ein

[Tender Branson]

The double-budgets for 2018 and 2019 were presented today in parliament by the Finance Minister.



This year, the deficit will come in at 0.4% and next year a surplus of 0.2% of GDP is expected (or 541 million €). This would be the first budget surplus in more than 50 years !

Here are revenues (blue) and outlays (red) for the past years and the budget path until 2022 (from 2019 on a small surplus is projected for each year):



Debt as a percentage of GDP will fall to around 62% until 2022, which would be a level last seen before the financial crisis of 2008/2009:



The "Presse" has the best overview for each ministry (use Google Translate for details):

https://diepresse.com/home/innenpolitik/5392775/Das-tuerkisblaue-Budget-im-Detail

https://derstandard.at/2000076583552/Budget-Wo-der-Guertel-enger-wo-er-lockerer-sitzt

https://derstandard.at/2000076535313/Regierung-erspart-sich-Milliarden-bei-Pensionen-und-verschaerft-Altersteilzeit

http://orf.at/stories/2431093/2431108

[Tender Branson]

Today, the new (old) ÖVP-Green government in Tyrol presented itself and their coalition programme for the next 5 years, after the ÖVP and Green party committees voted in favour yesterday.

Here is the new team (6x ÖVP & 2x Greens):



http://tirol.orf.at/news/stories/2902687

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In Lower Austria, the new ÖVP-SPÖ-FPÖ government was sworn in and Governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner was re-elected Governor with 53/56 votes (the Greens voted against).

Here is the new team (6x ÖVP, 2x SPÖ, 1x FPÖ):



https://derstandard.at/2000076625378/NOe-Landtag-Johanna-Mikl-Leitner-als-Landeshauptfrau-wiedergewaehlt

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In other news, while the opposition was fuming the ÖVP-FPÖ government killed the smoking ban in restaurants today in parliament and passed a first small tax cut for low/middle-income earners (starting on July 1).

https://derstandard.at/2000076639273/Zorn-Zwischenrufe-und-Zweckehe-bei-Rauchdebatte-im-Parlament

[Tender Branson]

The polls are now starting to shift !

With the first 100 days of ÖVP-FPÖ now approaching, the media has commissioned several polls this week (in fact 3 of them) and they show the FPÖ sliding.

There are 4 main reasons for this I guess:

* The FPÖ's constant Nazi-scandals that are being digged out by the media
* The FPÖ's dubious role in the BVT intelligence agency scandal
* The FPÖ's tenacity on killing the public smoking ban (which 2/3 of voters support)
* As a result of this, even some softcore FPÖ-voters are taking a 2nd look at the SPÖ

Here are the polls:

Ö24/Research Affairs




http://www.oe24.at/oesterreich/politik/Neue-Umfrage-FPOe-stuerzt-ab/327118247

Heute/Unique Research





http://www.heute.at/politik/news/story/Umfrage-Unique-Research-FPOe-verliert-an-SPOe-kleines-Plus-fuer-OeVP-55337076

ServusTV/OGM

32% ÖVP
28% SPÖ
24% FPÖ
  7% NEOS
  5% Greens
  3% LiPi
  1% Others

https://www.ots.at/presseaussendung/OTS_20180323_OTS0160/oesterreicher-mit-regierung-zufrieden-oevp-bei-sonntagsfrage-klar-voran-spoe-legt-etwas-zu

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In general, Austrian voters still approve of the new ÖVP-FPÖ government after 3 months:

In the "Heute" poll, voters approve by a 50-45 margin and in the ServusTV poll by a 49-45 margin.

That is much better than the previous SPÖVP government, which only had 20% approval ratings - but slightly lower than the 60% approval ÖVP-FPÖ got in inital polls after being sworn in.

As for the proposed budget surplus in 2019, 72% of voters support the first budget in more than 60 years without new debts. Even 58% of SPÖ-voters (!) support the balanced budget.

[Tender Branson]

Another interesting finding of the recent polls:

According to the OGM poll, Austrian voters strongly favour balancing the budget by significantly cutting spending for foreigners and asylum seekers. This part of the budget proposal is supported by a massive 78-19 margin.

Link

A "Profil" magazine poll out today is showing the same thing, but by a slightly smaller margin (64% support the cuts for foreigners, while 31% are opposed).

Link

The Ö24 poll on the other hand asked voters in which budget areas they would like to see cuts and in which areas they would definitely not want any cuts:

* 83% want cuts/savings "within the system" (= administration, subsidies etc.)
* 66% want cuts/savings for foreigners/asylum seekers and their integration
* 65% want cuts/savings for arts and culture

* 91% want no cuts/savings for healthcare
* 91% want no cuts/savings for education
* 85% want no cuts/savings for police/security
* 60% want no cuts/savings for infrastructure (= roads/rail/internet etc.)

Link

[Tender Branson]

The Salzburg-Greens are out with new posters, focusing on revitalizing rural town centers (with a responsible policy on regional planning policy, such as keeping more young people there and luring others into these areas and more shops in the town centers) and a better public-transport policy for the horrible traffic situation in the state (we only have 550K people but 25 million tourists each year and a horrible commute in and out of Salzburg city) ...







I think they will still drop from 20% to about 8-10% in the election ...

[Tender Branson]

There's a 4th federal poll this weekend by IMAS for the "Krone" with a huge sample size of 2.073 people surveyed, but it was conducted over a month-long timespan and used CATI and Face-to-Face interviews.

Still, it has about the same results as the other polls:



http://www.krone.at/1676163

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In other news, a teacher, unionist and SPÖ-member in Vienna has spoken out to the media about the catastrophic situation in Vienna's schools, where some 50-90% of students now have a migration background and 50% are Muslims. She said that there are more and more attacks on teachers and that Muslim students are more concerned about their beliefs and Sharia than the teachings of the school. Out of 25 students in a class, 21 need to be integrated ...

Meanwhile, she had to step down after pressure from the SPÖ and other unionists, because her comments are "not helpful" and "not politically correct" ...

https://www.welt.de/vermischtes/article174449264/Lehrerin-in-Wien-In-einer-Klasse-von-25-Kindern-muss-man-21-integrieren.html

http://www.oe24.at/oesterreich/politik/Nach-Islam-Sager-Wut-Lehrerin-tritt-zurueck/327330147

[rob in cal]

   Tender, with so many students with a moslem background in the Vienna schools, that would suggest that many (most parts?) of Vienna, not just Favoriten, are being ethnically and socially transformed.  Do we have an ethnic/religious map of Vienna as whole?

[Tender Branson]

   Tender, with so many students with a moslem background in the Vienna schools, that would suggest that many (most parts?) of Vienna, not just Favoriten, are being ethnically and socially transformed.  Do we have an ethnic/religious map of Vienna as whole?

Vienna is slowly being transformed, yes. Students make up a small proportation of the overall population, but birth rates and Muslim percentages are highest of course among the young.

The last religious data is from the 2001 Census, the last time religion was asked in a Census. Recent numbers are only based on estimates, such as religious makeup of immigrant's home countries. If for example, 50K Afghans came you can assume that 99% of them are Muslims. And many immigrants who came in the past 17 years were from Muslim countries + the high birth rates led to an increase of Muslims from around 3% of the Austrian population in 2001 to about 8-10% now. Among students in Vienna it is 50% right now, so the numbers will continue to rise. I have no problem with that as long as the Muslims get rid of their backwards worldview. But unfortunately, Austrian Muslim immigrants tend to be from impoverished, backwards wastelands in the Middle East and Africa. So their integration will take a while ...

As for your question: maps are hardly available because the lack of religious data.

[Tender Branson]

Austria had a 0.7% budget deficit last year (down from 1.6% in 2016) and 78.6% debt as a percentage of GDP (down from 83.6%).

http://www.statistik.at/web_en/press/116541.html

Good.

Now down to below 60% with balanced budgets please.

[DavidB.]

The Austrian government has refused to stand with the UK, the U.S., Australia, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Canada, Poland and a lot of other countries by not expelling one or more Russian diplomats. A coordinated EU response is the best signal, so this is disappointing. One of the clear disadvantages of the FPÖ in government.

[TheSaint250]

The Austrian government has refused to stand with the UK, the U.S., Australia, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Canada, Poland and a lot of other countries by not expelling one or more Russian diplomats. A coordinated EU response is the best signal, so this is disappointing. One of the clear disadvantages of the FPÖ in government.

This isn't the FPÖ's "fault," per se. The Austrian government's official position is that due to being neutral they won't cut off ties.

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https://www.thelocal.at/20180327/neutral-austria-wont-expel-russian-diplomats

If I were there, I'd want the Russian delegates kicked out, but I can see why they won't.