People’s Party (ÖVP) Vice Chancellor Michael Spindelegger has called on the Social Democrats (SPÖ) to show more ambition in getting the public budget in order.
The foreign minister, who became chairman of the ÖVP around half a year ago, said about the current savings package talks yesterday (Tues): “I really want to know as soon as possible what is possible instead of being told permanently what cannot be done.”
The climate among negotiators of the government coalition parties is reportedly worsening due to the SPÖ’s refusal to stop calling for new taxes. The Social Democrats want to reintroduce a tax on inheritance. The measure was abandoned around four years ago due to high administrative demand, low revenues – a court ruling making charging Austrians that way impossible.
The SPÖ also wants a significantly higher tax on assets. Statistics show that Austria raked in only 0.5 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) with taxation measures affecting assets in 2008. The average for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) 34 members is 1.8 per cent.
SPÖ backbenchers and its Upper Austrian department warn from giving in to the ÖVP as far as a reintroduction of tuition fees is concerned. The Labour Chamber (AK), which is close to the SPÖ, calls for higher corporation taxes and stressed that the planned constitutional debt brake must not negatively affect labour market developments.
ÖVP Finance Minister Maria Fekter recently complained she had not heard “a single idea about how savings could be made” from members of the SPÖ. SPÖ General Secretary Laura Rudas dismissed this accusation while SPÖ State Secretary Andreas Schieder made aware of a government-internal concept paper of the SPÖ for more efficiency in the public sector and concerning administration.
SPÖ Styria boss Franz Voves suggested reducing the number of federal parliament seats from 183 to 165. He said such a step would also work as a signal to voters to prove that politicians were willing to make cuts in their own fields of operation. ÖVP Lower Austria head Erwin Pröll appreciated the idea. Pröll’s appeal to reform the role of the federal president failed to win acclaim among fellow party members and political rivals.
SPÖ Vienna Mayor Michael Häupl said at the weekend he could imagine reducing the number of city parliament delegates by 20 to 80. Häupl, who became mayor of the capital in 1994, emphasised that he would give the green light to such a reform only if other provincial parliaments agreed on similar measures. Voves and ÖVP Styria chief Hermann Schützenhöfer recently agreed to scaling down the Styrian parliament. The governor and vice governor also decided to freeze civil servants’ salaries and start charging parents for sending their kids to the region’s kindergartens.
Häupl told radio station Ö1 on Saturday he was ready to debate details of the approaching savings package with SPÖ Chancellor Werner Faymann if the party leader asked for his opinion. Earlier this month, the mayor of Vienna claimed he would not oppose any reasonable reform affecting the state’s or the province’s public services and administration. However, Häupl warned from using a “steel knife” in checking the savings potential of the healthcare sector and education services.
AK and Federal Trade Union (ÖGB) called for an end of tax privileges of farmers while ÖVP Environment Minister Nikolaus Berlakovich said reducing subsidies for the sector could lead to its ruin. AK chief Herbert Tumpel said the tax burden on labourers and the middle class must not rise further in the coming years. He called for a continental tax on financial transactions, a measure Faymann has tried to convince European state and government leaders of for some time.
