Austrian Elections & Politics 4.0

[Diouf]

ÖVP-FPÖ are cracking down much harder against illegal (economic) migrants:

* Similar to Denmark, the cash that these immigrants/asylum seekers have with them when entering the country will be confiscated and used to pay for their housing.

* Also, their cell phones will be confiscated to see which migration routes they took, if they have radical Islamist content on their phones such as beheadings, torture etc.

* If migrants entering the country turn out to have destroyed their passports to hide or fake their identity (many Arab/African men who came in the past years claimed to be 11 years, but had full-grown beards ... ), their asylum claim will be automatically rejected and the people deported.

So no significant change of immigration policy in Austria either. Never really even looked like the FPÖ pushed for something radical. It does not make a whole lot of sense to talk a lot about illegal migration, when everybody in the World still has the right to go to Austria and apply for asylum. Even if the asylum application is rejected, these people are very hard to deport.

The Danish proposal about valuables is just another symbolic effort with very little effect in reality. In the year since it was approved, it has been used 4 times to confiscate a total amount of 117.000 DKK (16.000 euro). I'm guessing that amount does not pay housing for very many people in many months, neither in Denmark nor Austria. The proposal might have a very marginal role in the considered "attractiveness" of Austria as a place to apply for asylum in, but since EU-countries does not want to make significantly tighter immigration policies, they love these symbolic tough policies so soon most countries will copy each other there. Also, the most decisive thing is probably still where there are many immigrants already, since people go where their family and friends have already gone, so there's a path dependency which means Austria, having taken a lot of migrants, will probably continue to get a quite high share of them.

[Diouf]

* lowering child-benefit payments to foreign workers in Austria, who have their kids not in Austria but their home countries. The new child benefits will be indexed according to cost-of-living in the respective home countries, resulting in much lower payments for example to Hungarian workers - but also higher payments for workers who come from Switzerland, Sweden or Norway ... (these cuts will mostly finance the tax cut mentioned above).

Currently illegal under EU-law, so perhaps a new source of funding will have to be found in a year or two. Allowing this was actually a part of the renegotiation deal Cameron got with the EU (along with a bunch of other quite small, but really helpful changes), but since the British voted to leave, that deal did not materialize. Austria has indeed kept pushing for this to be legal, along with Denmark, Germany, Netherlands and Ireland, but it so far hasn't happened due to opposition from CEE countries and Commissioner Marianne Thyssen. Making it into law in Austria seems like another way too push for it to be legal in the EU, but also a quite big likelyhood that it will be deemed illegal by the ECJ in a year or three and create a hole in the budget. Hopefully the increased child payments in Poland and other countries as well as the wish to re-attract some of their workers in other EU countries could help reduce the opposition among CEE countries.

[Diouf]

Austria's EU presidency over the next 6 months has a proposal out to allow asylum requests only outside the EU (with some exceptions):

Austrian proposal requires asylum seekers to apply outside EU

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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-austria/austrian-proposal-requires-asylum-seekers-to-apply-outside-eu-profil-idUSKBN1JX0HO

+ more on Kurz's role and chances in the current EU presidency:

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-07-06/austria-is-the-place-to-look-for-next-eu-leader

If you take this proposal at its word, then it is a poor idea. It will lead to more non-western migrants in the EU because it will be easier to reach the place, from where you can seek asylum. Therefore many more would be able to get asylum. Theoretically, there will be some benefits as those who get their asylum application rejected, will not be in the EU. However, in reality these are the people that would continue to travel towards Europe, unless there is a strong border guard, which push backs these migrants (which we are yet to see).

This proposal can be good if it is the first step towards a system, where both asylum seekers and those receiving asylum are located outside Europe. But this is not how the proposal currently sounds.

[Diouf]

2 of the ÖVP's new young MPs in parliament, Johanna Jachs (right) and Klaus Lindinger (left), have started a summer campaign to punish fellow MPs for missing roll call votes - with a fine of 100-150€ for each missed vote:



The independent platform "addendum" has analyzed the participation of the 183 MPs in the Austrian parliament in the current parliamentary year which just ended.

There were 358 roll call votes in 32 sessions this year.

These were the MPs who voted most and least:



SPÖ-leader Kern was among the worst performing, missing 69.3% of the 358 votes.

Kern would have faced a fine of up to 37.200€ for being AWOL under the ÖVP plans.

At least Jachs and Lindinger are not hypocrites, because they were among the 10 best-performing MPs in the vote analysis ...

https://diepresse.com/home/innenpolitik/5475475/Junge-OeVPAbgeordnete-wollen-Strafen-fuer-Schwaenzer-wie-Kern

This is a fairly clever summer strategy by the Young ÖVP, because Austrians hate almost nothing more than lazy overpaid politicians ... (except maybe non-integrating foreigners).

The Austrian Parliament doesn't even have a clearing deal so that a proportional number of MPs can stay away from a vote? Didn't think the country was this backwards. No wonder it can't even conduct an election properly.

[Diouf]

The Austrian Parliament doesn't even have a clearing deal so that a proportional number of MPs can stay away from a vote? Didn't think the country was this backwards. No wonder it can't even conduct an election properly.

The consensus among voters is that MPs (who are lazy, overpaid losers who earn 10.000€ a month) should be present and voting all the time - just like regular workers. Exemptions of course for medical reasons, but no reasons other than that.

As for the elections, there was a trial recently which led to (mild) sentences for several election officials from 2016. The problem wasn't the vote counting itself (this was done properly of course), but the fact that some election officials used to fast-track the protocolls.

In a more developed democracy like Denmark, the parties are smart enough to agree to let a proportional number of their MPs stay away. Normally around 50% of MPs are cleared, so they can do actual work (meeting/visiting companies, NGOs, lobby organizations, constituents, negotiating political agreements, travel abroad etc.). The exception only if there are rebels on the majority side, so that there is actually any doubt about the outcome.

[Diouf]

The Austrian Parliament doesn't even have a clearing deal so that a proportional number of MPs can stay away from a vote? Didn't think the country was this backwards. No wonder it can't even conduct an election properly.

The consensus among voters is that MPs (who are lazy, overpaid losers who earn 10.000€ a month) should be present and voting all the time - just like regular workers. Exemptions of course for medical reasons, but no reasons other than that.

As for the elections, there was a trial recently which led to (mild) sentences for several election officials from 2016. The problem wasn't the vote counting itself (this was done properly of course), but the fact that some election officials used to fast-track the protocolls.

In a more developed democracy like Denmark, the parties are smart enough to agree to let a proportional number of their MPs stay away. Normally around 50% of MPs are cleared, so they can do actual work (meeting/visiting companies, NGOs, lobby organizations, constituents, negotiating political agreements, travel abroad etc.). The exception only if there are rebels on the majority side, so that there is actually any doubt about the outcome.

That doesn't have a whole lot to do with "a more developed democracy like Denmark" or not ... it's more that MPs already enjoy a lot of priviledges that regular workers do not enjoy:

They earn 10.000€ a month, parliamentary sessions only take place on 30-40 days a year, most of the MP's work is done by their aides, they have 10 weeks or more off each year (regular worker: 5 weeks), therefore you can easily expect them to be present all the time for voting - or pay fines.

And besides, MPs hardly spend time abroad or talking with constituents (in PR countries, it's different in FPTP countries) ... maybe a few days, but that's about it. It's mostly the cabinet members that are abroad sometimes.

That sounds like an unusually and unbelievably low workload for MPs compared to most other countries, but I guess if they have to use half a year campaigning for elections that are invalid and trying to overcome the impossible obstacle of locating workable glue, then there is not much time left for actual parliamentary work. Hopefully, Austrian companies are better at organizing the use of their workforce than their parliament; would be kind of weird if every employee was required to put a stamp on every outgoing item.

[Diouf]

The Austrian Parliament doesn't even have a clearing deal so that a proportional number of MPs can stay away from a vote? Didn't think the country was this backwards. No wonder it can't even conduct an election properly.

The consensus among voters is that MPs (who are lazy, overpaid losers who earn 10.000€ a month) should be present and voting all the time - just like regular workers. Exemptions of course for medical reasons, but no reasons other than that.

As for the elections, there was a trial recently which led to (mild) sentences for several election officials from 2016. The problem wasn't the vote counting itself (this was done properly of course), but the fact that some election officials used to fast-track the protocolls.

In a more developed democracy like Denmark, the parties are smart enough to agree to let a proportional number of their MPs stay away. Normally around 50% of MPs are cleared, so they can do actual work (meeting/visiting companies, NGOs, lobby organizations, constituents, negotiating political agreements, travel abroad etc.). The exception only if there are rebels on the majority side, so that there is actually any doubt about the outcome.

That doesn't have a whole lot to do with "a more developed democracy like Denmark" or not ... it's more that MPs already enjoy a lot of priviledges that regular workers do not enjoy:

They earn 10.000€ a month, parliamentary sessions only take place on 30-40 days a year, most of the MP's work is done by their aides, they have 10 weeks or more off each year (regular worker: 5 weeks), therefore you can easily expect them to be present all the time for voting - or pay fines.

And besides, MPs hardly spend time abroad or talking with constituents (in PR countries, it's different in FPTP countries) ... maybe a few days, but that's about it. It's mostly the cabinet members that are abroad sometimes.

That sounds like an unusually and unbelievably low workload for MPs compared to most other countries, but I guess if they have to use half a year campaigning for elections that are invalid and trying to overcome the impossible obstacle of locating workable glue, then there is not much time left for actual parliamentary work. Hopefully, Austrian companies are better at organizing the use of their workforce than their parliament; would be kind of weird if every employee was required to put a stamp on every outgoing item.

Stop being so sarcastic and get back to the topic at hand ...

If parliament only holds sessions on 30-40 days a year, you can at least expect all MPs to be present during the voting. I mean, they have 330 other days of the year to do their other work that you mentioned. Otherwise, they should pay.

If the most important thing you look for in a MP is the ability to move their finger up and down, then sure it is absolutely crucial. Luckily this is not a widespread belief in Denmark, so the most important political actors actually spend their time trying to push through the preferred policies of their voters instead of half-sleeping in a chamber, where the results of the votes are a formality. Below the Danish MPs with the highest abstention rates, which is basically the list of the most influential politicians.

[Diouf]

As I have said, MPs should at least be present in parliament the limited time of the year that parliament is in session. They have plenty of time to do all of their political work in the remaining 300 days.

It's good for the optics and their impression among voters if they are present in parliament everytime it has a session. Besides, it would be unfair if an MP has an almost 100% abstention rate (like in Denmark), whereas a regular worker would be kicked out of a company right away if he/she fails to show up at work every 2nd day ...

A regular worker would be fired immediately for spending his/her time on unnecessarily stamping all outgoing items, when you could have machines or trained hamsters do that. A regular worker would be praised and get a raise for finding solutions to problems at the company in cooperation with the other workers.

[Diouf]

As I have said, MPs should at least be present in parliament the limited time of the year that parliament is in session. They have plenty of time to do all of their political work in the remaining 300 days.

It's good for the optics and their impression among voters if they are present in parliament everytime it has a session. Besides, it would be unfair if an MP has an almost 100% abstention rate (like in Denmark), whereas a regular worker would be kicked out of a company right away if he/she fails to show up at work every 2nd day ...

A regular worker would be fired immediately for spending his/her time on unnecessarily stamping all outgoing items, when you could have machines or trained hamsters do that. A regular worker would be praised and get a raise for finding solutions to problems at the company in cooperation with the other workers.

You said it right there ! At the company ... in parliament. They should be present at their workplace.

I know Austrians are inclined to keep people locked for years in confined spaces, but I still don't see this as the best way to run a parliament. The sentence you are highlighting literally says "solutions to problems at the company" which would often be by contacts with suppliers, buyers, local government, or thinking up new smart ways of solving problems; not by locking all workers in a cold warehouse stamping all outgoing items as seems to be your preferred workflow.

[Diouf]

As I have said, MPs should at least be present in parliament the limited time of the year that parliament is in session. They have plenty of time to do all of their political work in the remaining 300 days.

It's good for the optics and their impression among voters if they are present in parliament everytime it has a session. Besides, it would be unfair if an MP has an almost 100% abstention rate (like in Denmark), whereas a regular worker would be kicked out of a company right away if he/she fails to show up at work every 2nd day ...

A regular worker would be fired immediately for spending his/her time on unnecessarily stamping all outgoing items, when you could have machines or trained hamsters do that. A regular worker would be praised and get a raise for finding solutions to problems at the company in cooperation with the other workers.

You said it right there ! At the company ... in parliament. They should be present at their workplace.

I know Austrians are inclined to keep people locked for years in confined spaces, but I still don't see this as the best way to run a parliament. The sentence you are highlighting literally says "solutions to problems at the company" which would often be by contacts with suppliers, buyers, local government, or thinking up new smart ways of solving problems; not by locking all workers in a cold warehouse stamping all outgoing items as seems to be your preferred workflow.

Encouraging high-earning MPs to spend 30 days a year in their workplace is certainly like locking people up ... do people who are locked up earn 10.000€ a month ?

Whatever, I made my point clear and your argument doesn't make a lot of sense.

Their workplace is the whole country, and their task is to improve it. That obvious logic shouldn't be very difficult to understand, even for Austrians.