Dispute over EU law

Renaturation: Dornauer shoots against SPÖ line

Dornauer does not toe the party line on the renaturation law.

(Bild: APA/ERICH SPIESS)

Tyrol's SPÖ regional party leader Georg Dornauer caused a stir on Tuesday with criticism of his party colleagues on the issue of the EU renaturation law. He also went against the party line in his assessment of the Brussels regulation - and spoke of a "transparent game".

He does not understand why it is "suddenly customary" to withdraw from a unanimous decision of the provincial governors' conference, says Dornauer. A clear jab at the red state emperors from Vienna and Carinthia, Michael Ludwig and Peter Kaiser. 

The "whole game" has been "transparent for weeks and highly party-politically oriented towards an election campaign", said the Deputy Governor at the press conference in Innsbruck, making a clear reference to the defeated EU elections. "Possibly also on the part of my party," added the Tyrolean SPÖ leader.

Vienna and Carinthia paved the way for Gewessler
However, he had not spoken to Ludwig and Kaiser about this "because I have not met them". Vienna and Carinthia had recently distanced themselves from the decision of the LH conference and spoken out in favor of the EU renaturation law. Environment Minister Leonore Gewessler (Greens) had argued, not least because of this, that this would legally enable her to give her approval - which the ÖVP did not approve of.

Currently have little to say to each other: Ludwig, Kaiser and Dornauer

(Bild: APA/FLORIAN WIESER)

Overall, Dornauer did not agree with the EU law. They could not agree to the renaturation law in this form - "where the nation states only have a manageable amount of influence". Which is not entirely true, as a large "Krone" check shows. The member states have room for maneuver and can weigh things up regionally.

Dornauer criticizes Gewessler's appearance
He also had nothing good to say about Gewessler and was annoyed by her "malicious smile after the decision": "That is a style of politics that I would never cultivate and do not particularly appreciate." He reminded the minister that she was sworn to uphold the constitution.

However, Dornauer welcomed the fact that ÖVP Chancellor Karl Nehammer had not ended the turquoise-green coalition on Monday. A free play of forces in parliament three months before a decisive election could, after all, "cost the taxpayer a relatively large amount of money": "I know how committed our deserving parliamentarians are during election campaigns."

ÖVP agrees
The coalition partner, Tyrol's governor Anton Mattle (ÖVP), also justified his rejection at the press conference on the subject of disaster control by citing the curtailment of national competencies. "Much more differentiation is needed. Wherever there is still no solution, the Commission decides. This is not the federal structure that we expect in the EU," he said.

Both Dornauer and Mattle found it problematic, for example, that all transverse structures on rivers were being called into question - "a large proportion of these are bedload basins and flood protection facilities", emphasized the state leader: "Simply going over them with a comb is not an option."

Greens fire back
Meanwhile, Tyrol's Green Party state spokesman and club chairman Gebi Mair sharply criticized Dornauer in a reaction. The deputy governor was "consistently on the wrong side" and the Tyrolean SPÖ was "once again living up to its image as a party of concreters". "Dornauer should ask his party colleagues in Vienna and Carinthia why they finally came to their senses and gave their consent to the renaturation law. There can no longer be any question of a unanimous decision by the provincial governors' conference," said Mair in a press release.