2023-12-06 17:34:03
MPs receive an increase of 4.85%, salaries in the federal service increase by 9.15% or €192
Vienna (PK) – The Constitutional Committee of the National Council today unanimously approved the zero pay round for top politicians proposed by the ÖVP and the Greens. Despite some reservations, the opposition parties also voted unanimously for the coalition draft. This means that the salaries of the Federal President, the members of the government and state secretaries, the three National Council Presidents, the club chairmen, the President of the Court of Auditors and the three Ombudsmen will not be increased next year. In total, around 30 people are affected. A half inflation adjustment and thus a salary increase of 4.85% is planned for the MPs and members of the Federal Council.
The salary agreement for the public service agreed between the government and the civil service union also received the green light from the committee. The salaries of federal civil servants and contract employees will therefore increase by 9.15% or at least €192 in the coming year. For low salaries, this means an increase of 9.71%.
The FPÖ had requested that high-ranking state politicians such as state governors, state councilors and state parliament presidents be included in the zero wage round, but was unable to get a corresponding initiative implemented. Further motions from the opposition were postponed, with demands for higher basic salaries for executive civil servants, a further development of the catalog of fundamental rights and a reform package for the federal administration being discussed.
Regular rounds of zero pay
According to the current legal regulations, the salaries of all politicians should have increased by 9.7% in the coming year. The decisive factor for the annual adjustment is the inflation rate or the pension increase, whichever is lower. However, MPs have repeatedly deviated from the legal automatism in the past. Most recently, there was a round of zero pay for top politicians in 2019 and 2021; in 2018, all politicians’ salaries remained frozen at the federal level.
ÖVP MP Johann Singer justified the motion submitted by Wolfgang Gerstl (ÖVP) and Agnes Sirkka Prammer (Greens) (2723/A) so that it corresponds to “the requirements of the time”. Eva Blimlinger (Greens) also believes that politicians’ reluctance to raise salaries is “okay” given the current situation. But one must also see that regular rounds of zero pay for politicians are an expression of the fact that the work of politicians is little valued.
As far as the involvement of state politicians called for by the FPÖ is concerned, Singer pointed out that the states had opted for different models. Blimlinger also said the states could regulate this themselves. However, she is critical of the fact that some mayors now earn significantly more than federal councilors, for example.
On behalf of the SPÖ, Alois Stöger explained that, given the government’s performance, a zero wage round was more than justified. In his opinion, only two of the politicians affected did a good job: “the Ombudsman” and Second President of the National Council Doris Bures. However, Stöger is also critical of ongoing zero wage rounds from a democratic policy perspective: one has to ask oneself where the point is. After all, the Chancellor already earns less than a department head, adjusted for working hours.
FPÖ MP Werner Herbert regretted that the zero wage round would only apply to federal politicians. The government proposal falls short, he said. In order to also include the members of the state government, including the state governors, the state parliament presidents, the club chairmen in the state parliaments and the mayor of Graz, Elke Kahr – as mayor of the largest Austrian city other than Vienna -, Herbert applied for an amendment to the salary limitation law, which was approved by the others However, the parliamentary groups rejected it. It’s not about “politician bashing,” emphasized Herbert, but given the population’s economic situation, the zero wage round is a necessary step toward “creating social justice.”
Broad support for the salary agreement for the public sector
The ÖVP, SPÖ, FPÖ and the Greens agreed to the salary agreement for the public sector. The corresponding salary tables were included in a legislative proposal also submitted by the coalition parties (3734/A), which originally only contained editorial corrections. A salary increase of 9.15% or at least €192 is planned, which means an increase of 9.71% for the lowest salaries. Allowances also increase by 9.15%.
Eva Blimlinger (Greens) said she was very pleased that the salary agreement was successful in this form. Ultimately, the public service ensures “that the republic functions.”
Romana Deckenbacher (ÖVP) and Selma Yildirim (SPÖ) also expressed great praise for the civil servants and contract employees and in this sense welcomed “the good conclusion”. In Yildirim’s opinion, this is also necessary because the government has kept inflation high by refraining from price interventions. She also pointed out that salaries in the public sector cannot keep up with those in the private sector in many areas, which is why it is difficult to find clerks for courts or judicial guards. Deckenbacher also referred to 8,000 vacancies in the public sector
FPÖ MP Werner Herbert spoke of a “good wage increase” that is “quite acceptable” in percentage terms. In this sense, he also held out the prospect of his parliamentary group’s approval of the draft law, although the FPÖ would have preferred fixed amounts. Lower income earners would have benefited more from this than top civil servants who already earn well, emphasized Herbert.
NEOS consider the salary agreement to be too high
In contrast, Gerald Loacker (NEOS) expressed criticism of the salary agreement. He recalled that Finance Minister Magnus Brunner had called on collective bargaining partners to show wage restraint in the summer and had promised tax breaks for one-off payments. Now there is a significantly higher plus in the public sector than in the metal industry. If you take the biennia into account, it’s actually a double-digit salary increase. In his opinion, a moderation – around 8.15% – would have been appropriate, especially since the incomes of public employees have “outpaced” the incomes of blue-collar workers in recent years. In return for the generous salary increase, one could have “got something out of it,” such as eliminating the paid lunch break, said Loacker. He also pointed out that the federal government had created 4,700 additional positions during its term in office.
Kogler: The budget included a salary increase of 9.1%
Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler countered Loacker by saying that if one looks at wage developments since 2008, the private sector is doing a bit better than the public sector. In addition, the government as an employer must ensure that the public sector can keep up with the private sector when it comes to salaries. According to Kogler, the finance minister can also cope with the increase in salary; according to him, 9.1% was “set” in the budget from the outset. Fixed amounts have already been agreed upon several times, but care must be taken to ensure that the system “remains in line overall,” he explained in the direction of the FPÖ.
Regarding criticism of the expansion of the staffing plan, Kogler noted that Austria was below the OECD average in terms of the share of public services in the total number of employees. In addition, the public service is currently in a “transformation phase”. In view of the impending wave of retirements, preparations must be made to ensure knowledge transfer. It was also necessary to counteract the staff shortage in some areas such as the judiciary. The Vice Chancellor also rejected SPÖ MP Yildirim’s accusation that the government had done nothing to combat inflation.
FPÖ demands higher basic salaries and better protection for police officers
Four motions from the FPÖ were postponed by the Constitutional Committee. The MPs Werner Herbert and Christian Lausch are calling, among other things, for higher basic salaries for law enforcement officers through the conversion of allowances, the introduction of two additional salary levels for senior police officers and an expansion of night duty hours (3765/A(E)) as well as a reduction or complete elimination of pension deductions for law enforcement officers who are entitled to a hard work pension and have more than 120 months of hard work (3763/A(E)).
Herbert and Lausch also see a demand from the government when it comes to better protection for police officers on duty (3766/A(E)). For example, they advocate better protecting the identity of police officers – for example by moving away from name tags and information blocks in the registration law -, improving legal protection for law enforcement officers and abolishing the recently established complaints office against police violence. The two FPÖ MPs argue that this is a “site of denigration and defamation”. Likewise, in her opinion, the prosecution authorities and the service and disciplinary authority responsible for law enforcement officers repeatedly “overshoot the mark” (3764/A(E)).
NEOS MP Gerald Loacker described the FPÖ’s demands as “cheap populism from the bottom drawer”. He understood that as a police unionist, Herbert wanted to get the most out of “his people,” but as a member of parliament, it was his job to see the big picture and not make unrealistic demands, he said.
SPÖ MP Selma Yildirim, however, considers some points in the applications to be worthy of discussion. However, a special status for police officers in disciplinary proceedings is out of the question for them. According to Eva Blimlinger (Greens), the proposals should be discussed as part of a “major salary reform”, which is why the ÖVP and the Greens voted to postpone the initiatives.
SPÖ insists on amending the Federal Archives Act
Recently discussed in the committee was an amendment to the Federal Archives Act that was introduced by the SPÖ in July 2020 (743/A), which is intended to ensure that digital written and communication material from members of the government and other supreme bodies will also be archived in the state archives in the future. Despite a resolution passed by the National Council in 2019, no corresponding steps have yet been taken, criticizes Christian Drobits, who is concerned, among other things, with emails, chat messages and statements from state bodies on social media. The Freedom of Information Act also does not provide for any corresponding regulations. Drobits also advocates giving scientists and researchers access to the archived holdings after ten years – and not just after twenty years.
The initiative is supported by NEOS. Johannes Margreiter noted that affected bodies are already providing far too few documents to the state archives. If the retention obligation is not extended to include digital documents, the Federal Archives Act could be “immediately scrapped”. Drobits assured that it was not about private records from top organs, but about those that were related to their function.
Eva Blimlinger (Greens) pointed out that the matter is already complex when it comes to analog data. Ultimately, the state archive decides what is archived. As a historian, Blimlinger said she would prefer to have no deadline at all for research, but the General Data Protection Regulation and privacy protection must also be observed when accessing the archive. For Rudolf Taschner (ÖVP), the central question is “what is worthy of being archived”; there is already “an abundance of incidental information”.
Inflation adjustment of the basic compensation for state institutions
A motion from the SPÖ was also submitted some time ago (2711/A(E)), which aims to adjust the basic compensation for significant outsourced legal entities of the federal government annually to inflation in the future and to increase the basic compensation in advance on an additional basis if the funds provided are no longer sufficient to meet the respective statutory requirements due to the lack of cost-of-living compensation to date or due to urgent investment needs to fulfill the order in full. MP Selma Yildirim cites the Agency for Food Security (AGES), Statistics Austria and the federal museums as examples. Sufficient public funding is needed for key tasks such as measures to combat epidemics, food controls, the preparation of official statistics or the protection of cultural assets, she argues.
Yildirim noted in the committee that the budget had recently been increased for some institutions, but this did not compensate for inflation to the necessary extent. Eva Blimlinger (Greens) and Michaela Steinacker (ÖVP) contradicted this, citing, among other things, the budget accompanying law. Blimlinger emphasized that the universities would also receive significantly more money.
NEOS MP Gerald Loacker also showed no understanding for the request. The budget deficit was far too high anyway, he argued, and in this context also referred to corresponding criticism from SPÖ budget spokesman Kai Jan Krainer.
SPÖ calls for further development of the catalog of fundamental rights
Aim of an SPÖ motion for a resolution submitted by Jörg Leichtfried (3685/A(E)) is the creation of basic social rights. Although the government program envisaged a resumption of all-party negotiations to develop an Austrian catalog of fundamental rights, including an examination of a possible expansion of the protection of fundamental rights and the development of a uniform catalog of state objectives, corresponding steps have so far been missing, he criticizes. He therefore calls on Constitutional Minister Karoline Edtstadler to immediately enter into dialogue with all National Council factions and to also involve experts and representatives of civil society in the negotiations. After all, the legislative period only lasts one year, says Leichtfried.
Sabine Schatz (SPÖ) reiterated the demand in the committee, pointing out that many people in Austria are at risk of social exclusion. Her group colleague Muna Duzdar also demanded that we finally sit down at the negotiating table and start the process at least once.
However, Agnes Sirkka Prammer (Greens) does not believe that an agreement can be reached on this issue in this legislative period. “That won’t happen anymore,” she said. You have to be realistic like that, even if she’s sorry. The SPÖ application shows “how quickly the last few years have passed”.
Franz Leonhard Eßl (ÖVP) countered the SPÖ by saying that social rights were secured in Austria. He is convinced that the social network is tighter than in any other country in Europe.
NEOS criticize “Postenschacher”
At the request of NEOS, motions from Nikolaus Scherak and Gerald Loacker were placed on the agenda, which, among other things, called for transparent appointments to positions in the public service (82/A(E)) and a rollback of the power of secretaries general in ministries (108/A). Accordingly, there should be mandatory public hearings when filling management positions and appointing board and supervisory board members in state-affiliated companies, as well as a cooling-off phase for politicians and party officials. General Secretaries, in turn, should only be allowed to carry out coordinating tasks, as in the past, and the tender law should also apply to them.
In response to the results of the ÖVP corruption investigation committee, the NEOS are also calling for a “reform package for the federal administration” (3331/A(E)). They are also concerned with measures to prevent “postal corruption” in the public service and in government-related areas. Scherak, Loacker and Stephanie Krisper claim that the considerable power that ministers have in selecting personnel has been repeatedly abused in the past to provide for party members. This contributed to the politicization of the administration and worsened its quality.
In order to counteract this, the NEOS propose, among other things, to staff selection committees differently, to limit the number of ministerial cabinets and to make it more difficult to switch from cabinet to administration. In addition, dual functions in the cabinet and in the ministerial administration should be prohibited and staff loans should only be permitted in justified exceptional cases. Comprehensive obligations to justify new business divisions and mandatory involvement of the Court of Auditors are intended to prevent reorganizations from being carried out for the purpose of party political change. The development of an entry-level test (“concours”) for jobs that require academic training is also part of the list of requirements.
A current case shows how important cooling-off phases are, said Gerald Loacker in the debate. Only a short time after resigning from his supervisory board mandate at Asfinag, it became known that the Secretary General of the Ministry of the Environment, Herbert Kasser, was moving to the Asfinag board.
In Loacker’s opinion, the current construction of general secretaries also undermines the understanding of civil servants as public servants. They are signaled that their boss will always be “a political person.” This also has a negative impact on the willingness to apply for higher positions such as section leaders. Johannes Margreiter (NEOS) is particularly critical of the high number of cabinet employees in the ministries.
The NEOS received support when it came to the issue of general secretaries from SPÖ MP Selma Yildirim. Their establishment in its current form shows the ministers’ distrust of their civil servants, she said. In addition, these would cost taxpayers more than €200 million per year.
FPÖ MP Werner Herbert, on the other hand, said that general secretaries have generally proven themselves, even if some ministers forego them. Friedrich Ofenauer (ÖVP) pointed out their coordinating function. In addition, the minister continues to be at the head of a ministry. (end) gs
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