The “incredible inflation” is the topic that moves people in Austria the most, said vice club boss Jörg Leichtfried at a press conference on Tuesday. The FPÖ, in turn, takes issue with the planned ORF budget statement and is planning an urgent initiative for media minister Susanne Raab (ÖVP). The NEOS are demanding a full-time bonus.
“Social Political Catastrophe”
Leichtfried saw the government failing on the issue of inflation for a long time. “And now they are sacrificing the tenants’ interests for party tactics.” The ÖVP and the Greens have been negotiating a rent brake for a long time, but have not come to any conclusions so far. “For the people in Austria, this is the biggest socio-political catastrophe that the republic has experienced,” said Leichtfried. If no solution is found by tomorrow, benchmark rents will increase by almost nine percent from April and category rents by another five percent from July. “This is an absolute failure of the government, which is bowing to the real estate lobby.” Once again, Leichtfried called for rents to be frozen for two years and then increased by just two percent annually.
“Turquoise green has run its course,” stated the SPÖ politician. “They can no longer achieve anything that will benefit the people in Austria. If they bring something together, it will benefit the super-rich.” The SPÖ also wants to address the issue of pension allocation and the four-day week. Once again, Leichtfried announced that he would give the government until March to rectify the pension payments. Then you want to bring a constitutional complaint. When it came to the four-day week, he called for the initiation of a major project on the subject, such as that in Great Britain.
FPÖ wants “urgent” because of ORF
The Freedom Party set completely different priorities in their plenary preview press conference: On the one hand, Vice-Chairman Hannes Amesbauer rebelled against the planned cost-of-living compensation for accommodation providers for refugees and told the ÖVP the “lie” about the falling number of asylum seekers, on the other hand, General Secretary Christian Hafenecker took action against the ORF and its targeted future financing through a household levy on leather. In this context, the FPÖ is planning an “urgent request” or an “urgent application” to Media Minister Raab.
Hafenecker described the ORF as a “privilege barn of a special class”, spoke of turquoise or green radio and located “court reporting” in the federal states. During the Corona period, the public broadcaster insulted the viewers every day, “declared the majority of Austrians to be outlaws” and engaged in vaccination lobbyism. An apology is needed for that. Change, politicized reporting and lack of objectivity prevail. Because of moral images like this, the FPÖ said “clearly no to the new ORF compulsory tax”, he emphasized, instead the ORF fee should be completely abolished.
NEOS want to reward full-time work
The NEOS will apply for a full-time bonus in the National Council session on Wednesday as part of the current hour they have designed. Every full-time employee is to receive a tax credit of 100 euros per month, regardless of their income. Around three million full-time employees would benefit from this, calculated NEOS boss Beate Meinl-Reisinger in a press conference. The Pinken put the costs for this at around 1.8 billion euros. Meinl-Reisinger argued that full-time work must pay off again and that incentives should be provided instead of penalizing part-time work, as Labor Minister Martin Kocher (ÖVP) did with his proposal to cut social benefits.
As a second point, the NEOS will apply for a nationwide free offer of childcare facilities in Austria in the plenum on Wednesday. This is the only way that single mothers would have the choice of whether they would like to work. Meinl-Reisinger pointed out that 36 percent of single parents are at risk of poverty, and so are their children.
As a third point, the NEOS will demand a reduction in the tax and duty ratio. Currently you have to pay 48 percent of your income in taxes and duties, which is the third highest value in the OECD after Belgium and Germany. The goal is a reduction to below 40 percent, explained Meinl-Reisinger. NEOS want working people to feel that work pays off again, argued the NEOS club chairwoman.
