When the FPÖ governs

Greens see climate ticket and PV subsidies at risk

The FPÖ is sticking to the combustion engine and would abolish the climate ticket for public transport, the Greens predict.

(Bild: stock.adobe.com, APA, Krone KREATIV)

The FPÖ has been number one in the polls for months and the party is aiming to join the federal government. The Greens, who are worried about their place there, are now warning against the blue party: They would abolish popular measures such as the climate ticket and subsidies for PV systems and boiler replacement. 

The starting point for the Greens' alarm are statements by FPÖ state party leader Manfred Haimbuchner. He had already announced at the end of August that there would be a "major cash audit" in the event of FPÖ participation in government, as there are "enough things that can be saved". For example, the turquoise-green government had spent a disproportionate amount of money on financing "climate utopias".

FPÖ does not want to implement climate plan
Haimbuchner followed up in the ORF-OÖ summer interview: The recently adopted National Climate Plan to reduce CO2 emissions would "not be implemented at all", the climate bonus was a "gift of money" that was not needed.

Climate ticket only an exhibit "for the museum"
For Stefan Kaineder, state spokesperson for the Greens, who is also deputy federal party leader, these statements are "dangerous threats". Firstly, failure to implement the climate plan would result in immense EU fines and secondly, "all support for climate protection measures" would cease: Subsidies for boiler replacement, for the purchase of a PV system or an e-car as well as the renovation bonus for thermal insulation or window replacement. Even the public transport climate ticket, which has already been sold 53,200 times in Upper Austria alone since its introduction in October 2021, would then only be an exhibit "for the museum", adds Agnes Prammer, the top candidate for the Greens in Upper Austria.  

The fight against the climate crisis and its consequences, such as the dramatic flooding, would simply no longer be waged if the FPÖ were in government.

Stefan Kaineder, Landessprecher der Grünen OÖ

No FPÖ comment
The FPÖ's climate policy is "a perfidious plan to keep Austrians and domestic companies dependent on fossil fuels", warn the Greens. However, it is not possible to say for sure to what extent the FPÖ would actually scale back the aforementioned climate protection achievements - the "Krone" has not yet received any response to a corresponding inquiry.