August Wöginger is against price caps, but sympathizes with an idea from Wifo boss Gabriel Felbermayr.
After weeks of debate about energy price caps, the ÖVP has found itself in a tricky situation these days: After Lower Austria’s governor, Johanna Mikl Leitner, had called for national energy price caps at the weekend as a remedy against the massive price increases – especially for electricity – several ÖVP grandees went out to do the same. After Mikl-Leitner’s announcement, the Styrian governor, Christopher Drexler, called on the federal government to speedily cover talks, his Upper Austrian counterpart, Thomas Stelzer, also expressed his sympathy for the advance from St. Pölten. Alone: The Turkish top government still thinks nothing of it, Chancellor and Finance Minister pleaded for European solutions for interventions in energy prices – again seconded by ÖVP state leaders from Salzburg and Vorarlberg.
ÖVP club boss August Wöginger is now trying to defuse the delicate internal party debates between the most powerful state politician and the federal leadership with a compromise. He rejects the price cap demanded by Mikl-Leitner: “I agree with the experts who say unreservedly that a general price cap only works across Europe,” says Wöginger in the “Presse” interview. Postscript: “But of course the electricity bills are high. That’s why I think experts should now – as suggested by Professor Felbermayr – check and calculate a cap on invoices.”