Uproar after interview

Social welfare: FPÖ lashes out at Hacker

Peter Hacker (left) defends the "Viennese way", Dominik Nepp wants to table a motion of no confidence.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Klemens Groh Zwefo)

The "Krone" interview with Social Welfare Councillor Peter Hacker (SPÖ) is making waves after it became public that a large Syrian family receives 4600 euros in minimum benefits. Hacker defends the Viennese system. The Viennese FPÖ leader Dominik Nepp, however, is "stunned" and demands the immediate dismissal of the city councillor.

More than a year before the Vienna elections, the election campaign is already in full swing. Favorite topics: migration and minimum income. The decisive factor for the newly sparked heated discussion is a refugee family of nine from Syria, who receive 4600 euros minimum income per month - more than in any other federal state, as Vienna voluntarily pays more.

Real middle age
"We don't want anyone in our city to live at subsistence level," says Hacker, explaining this approach. There would be no question of reducing benefits, as would a cap on payments for more than one child. "I believe that every child is worth the same. And I think this is intolerable cynicism. That the late-born should wear the worn-out garb of older siblings. That's real middle age."

"It's common practice in every middle-class family for the younger siblings to wear the clothes of the older ones. How unrealistic can you be? That's the biggest piece of nonsense I've ever read from a member of the government. Anyone who says something like that has no place in political office," said Vienna FPÖ leader Dominik Nepp in a statement, expressing his bewilderment. He continued: "Hacker is lying through his teeth in this interview and insults everyone who no longer wants to support this red minimum security madness."

One billion euros for the minimum income
Even the one billion euros that Vienna spends per year on minimum benefits does not deter Hacker. "Because it is immediately invested in the economic cycle." The city councillor also denies that the migrants would send any of it back home. In his opinion, there are countries that pay much more social welfare to migrants than Vienna.

Motion of censure planned
Nepp: "This assertion is completely false. Hacker negates the pull factor of Vienna's minimum security for asylum seekers, trivializes the daily expenditure on knives and thinks that spending one billion euros on minimum security is great." With the statements in the interview, the motion of censure against Hacker, but also Mayor Michael Ludwig, is more justified than ever, says Nepp. The FPÖ is hoping for the support of the ÖVP.