Picked apart by opponents

EU election debate: Vilimsky outraged with Ukraine slogan

Vilimsky (center) brought Lopatka, Schieder, Schilling and Brandstätter against him.

(Bild: APA/GEORG HOCHMUTH)

The leading candidates for the EU elections had a heated debate on ORF's "Elefantenrunde" on Wednesday evening. The discussion was particularly heated on the subject of the war in Ukraine. FPÖ politician Harald Vilimsky caused outrage with a comment.

Vilimsky claimed that the EU's anti-Russian position was moving it towards a third world war, whereas he wanted peace. With the statement "Nobody here but me is interested in ending the dying", the liberal politician immediately reaped decisive and indignant rebuttals - which did not prevent him from continuing. "You are crawling up NATO's backside," he accused the leading candidates from the ÖVP, SPÖ, Greens and NEOS.

Brandstätter: "FPÖ adopts Putin propaganda"
NEOS politician Helmut Brandstätter then went on the counter-attack and declared that the FPÖ was adopting Russian propaganda one-to-one. Russia, however, had no real interest in peace. Brandstätter pointed out that as early as 2014 - when Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea - there were requests from Russia to the FPÖ to oppose sanctions. "Combined with offers that money was flowing, we can prove that," said the NEOS top candidate. He referred to the involvement of the German AfD in an espionage scandal and said that it had not been proven whether money had actually flowed to the FPÖ.

SPÖ politician Schieder (left) and FPÖ top candidate Vilimsky were almost always of a different opinion.

(Bild: APA/AFP/Joe Klamar)

Green Party top candidate Lena Schilling also referred to the "connection between the extreme right in Europe and Russia". The aim was disinformation, she said, referring for example to the "Voice of Europe" propaganda network that had been exposed. Schilling also reminded Vilimsky of the friendship agreement that the FPÖ concluded with Putin's party in 2016. The politician himself was in Moscow for "working talks" at the time.

SPÖ lead candidate Andreas Schieder emphasized that there were "reports of questionable relations between right-wing parties and Putin" in the EU Parliament. In addition to the FPÖ and the AfD, he also mentioned Marine Le Pen's French Rassemblement National. ÖVP list leader Reinhold Lopatka called for diplomatic exchanges to be maintained despite Russia's attack, which violates international law, but justified the EU's spending on aid for Ukraine.

Debate on renaturation continued
The politicians repeatedly interrupted each other. The discussion about the EU renaturation law, for example, was also emotional. Vilimsky clarified the FPÖ's negative position: "Austria is smarter and better than the Community in Brussels would like to impose on us." Lopatka, whose ÖVP is opposing the law by all means , mocked the requirements for farmers to "count butterflies". Schilling, on the other hand, rebuked "lame excuses" and recalled 6000 scientists who had opposed the campaigning of the European People's Party.

Green top candidate Schilling and NEOS politician Brandstätter: "The discussion was sometimes very emotional.

(Bild: APA/GEORG HOCHMUTH)

She also complained that the rejectionist decision of the provincial governors was still intact despite the superficial turnaround in Vienna and Carinthia. SPÖ candidate Schieder emphasized his commitment to ecology and tried to explain his party's divided stance on renaturation. Together with Brandstätter, he accused the Greens of failing to get their way on climate protection legislation.