The mayor of Vienna has declared his willingness to determine the potential for reforms.
Michael Häupl – widely seen as one of the most powerful and influential members of the Austrian Social Democrats (SPÖ) – said yesterday (Tues) his city was ready to examine where subsidies could be reduced.
The federal government coalition of SPÖ and the People’s Party (ÖVP) of Vice Chancellor Michael Spindelegger wants to drastically reduce financial support of the state for public and private projects in Austria’s nine provinces to reduce the state debt. Austria splashes out 15 billion Euros in subsidies a year, statistics show. This figure helps the country to a leading position in the world as far as the volume of such spending is concerned.
Häupl warned from being overly careful as far as spending in the agricultural sector was regarded. He said the state must abstain from using a “steel knife” when it comes to lowering education and healthcare investments. The ÖVP is under pressure by its provincial branches of keeping the effect of upcoming austerity measures on farmers low. Agriculture sector businesspeople are still a stronghold of the conservative party which struggles to attract young voters in urban regions.
ÖVP Lower Austria Governor Erwin Pröll said today he “detects the will to carry out reforms” among political leaders of the provinces. Pröll added he was convinced of reaching results in cooperation with the federal government “by the second half of February”. The political heavyweight caused a stir in his party some weeks ago by suggesting the introduction of a temporary income tax increase. Pröll said those earning comparably high sums should have to hand over higher taxes as long as the crisis lasted.
The governor of Lower Austria also made clear he was against higher taxes on assets. Pröll said today that SPÖ Chancellor Werner Faymann and Spindelegger “are well aware of how serious the situation is”. Pröll’s statement refers to the government’s need to restore the state budget. Austria has debts of 215 billion Euros – a sum as high as 74 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP).
Peter Brabeck-Lemathe, chairman of Nestle’s board of directors, said earlier this week he did not consider the budget deficit as his home country’s most urgent problem. The businessman highlighted the immense health sector expenditure in Austria and said Austrians should “retire a bit later” than they were these days. Spindelegger is eying up an increase of four years by 2020 while Faymann identified a jump of two years to 60 as his party’s target. The chancellor said that an average increase of three years would be “desirable”. Austrians retire at an average age of 58, statistics show.
Labour market data discloses that around 30,000 employees quit due to invalidity each year. SPÖ Labour Minister Rudolf Hundstorfer said lowering number of invalidity pension cases would be one of his key goals in the coming years. The minister explained he planned to increase the number of health awareness programmes and preventive medical checkups offered to employees across the country.
