He is in favor of an “EU army”, but joining NATO is currently out of the question for him, especially in view of the upcoming US presidential election and a possible presidency of Donald Trump, said Brandstätter in the ORF “press hour”. Sunday.
“The sentence: ‘Neutrality protects us’ is wrong,” emphasized Brandstätter. But it is part of the Austrian self-image. He is currently ruling out joining NATO, “because we don’t know where NATO will be in a year.” The EU army called for by Brandstätter is something “completely different”. By purchasing weapon systems together, he argues, one third of the costs could be saved. “We have to be able to defend ourselves, but together with others.”
- HONEY: The Neos’ top EU candidate, Helmut Brandstätter, spoke in the “press hour” about how, as a neutral country, we are lulled into a false sense of security.
“Today we are not as safe as we could be,” said Brandstätter. With a common EU army, “Europe would be so strong that Putin wouldn’t dare attack us.” We have to defend ourselves against Russia, “but that can only be done together,” emphasized Brandstätter. Because: “Russia is a terrorist state” and must therefore be sanctioned. The dependence on Russian gas poses difficulties for Austria: “He (Russian President Vladimir Putin, note) has repeatedly played with the price of gas (…) those appointed by the ÖVP at OMV have completely sold us out to Russia is a fact.”
Europe should also become aware of the “drama” of Russian spies. “We know that there are Russian spies here and we are not expelling them. Mr. Schallenberg (Alexander, Austrian Foreign Minister, note), what’s going on?” He criticized the FPÖ for rejecting the Skyshield missile defense program. “The FPÖ wants to hand us over to Putin.”
Brandstätter would also like to see more Europe in the intelligence services. Here he is calling for a kind of “EU intelligence service”, but at the same time he is rejecting the monitoring of messenger services, as ÖVP Interior Minister Gerhard Karner and the director of the DSN (Directorate of State Security and Intelligence), Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, have already called for several times . He doesn’t see a contradiction in this, even though the vast majority of European intelligence services have this competence.
Meetings have been held again and again – most recently by FPÖ General Secretary Christian Hafenecker directly after the “press hour” on the “Hohes Haus” program on Sunday – in the last few weeks there has been a meeting between Brandstätter and the former Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution Egisto Ott. According to the NEOS politician, he contacted him when he was on the Ibiza investigative committee. Brandstätter said it didn’t seem “weird” to him, “because he wasn’t the only official who contacted me.” But: “Mr. Ott didn’t tell me anything, I didn’t get any information.” And further: “This was a sad and offended person who had the feeling that everyone was mean to him.”
The pink top candidate was asked about a long-standing NEOS demand, that of a “United States of Europe”. For him, this means that it would be normal to “study in another country and start a company”, but with significantly less bureaucracy than is already possible. Brandstätter once again called for education to be established as the fifth fundamental freedom alongside the fundamental freedoms of the European internal market, the free movement of goods, people, services and capital.
A common European foreign policy regarding the Middle East is also important. At the moment it is not possible to appear united because the different foreign ministers have different opinions. He wants “not a fortress Europe, but clear borders” with stronger external border protection.
Brandstätter was confident that his party would achieve its electoral goal of two mandates. NEOS’s recent electoral defeats in Innsbruck and Salzburg, but also previously in various state elections, would not unsettle him. With a view to the National Council elections in just over six months, the NEOS are “ready to finally create changes for Austria,” which is their claim to government participation. Brandstätter did not reveal whether he himself would be available for ministerial office.
