Liberal criticism

“No playing games with the world cultural heritage in Wachau!”

When it comes to her home region, FPÖ Provincial Councillor Susanne Rosenkranz is very clear.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/FPÖ NÖ, SEPA Media/Michael Indra)

The Mautern Bridge has recently become quieter. This is mainly due to the nebulous assurance of the black-blue provincial government that it wants to "review" the replacement bridge, which had already been declared dead itself. However, the Krems municipal council has now tabled a motion with explosive force. 

Susanne Rosenkranz, a member of the Freedom Party, who is also a local councillor in her home town, took to the airwaves: "The renovation of the Danube bridge in Mautern has been in the hands of the ÖVP for years. Both at state and federal level! Three days before the national elections, the ÖVP in Krems then comes up with the idea of demanding something from a future government. That's pure election campaign populism!" the Freedom Party member vented her anger.

However, she cannot really have been surprised by the proposal to exempt all Danube bridges from monument protection. At the beginning of September, the "Krone" reported on the proposal by ÖVP deputy mayor Florian Kamleitner. He wanted to have a new, contemporary construction as a Danube crossing and preserve at least parts of the listed and historic original building "as a memorial against the war".

"Errors in form and content"
However, the blue member of parliament waited until the next municipal council meeting to get rid of her criticism: The motion, which for Rosenkranz was also brimming with formal errors, was "more than bizarre" - after all, bridges are known all over the world as historical monuments. She cites the Rialto Bridge in Venice and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco Bay, neither of which are necessarily located on the Danube and would therefore not have been affected by the ÖVP's urgent motion.

Nevertheless, Rosenkranz believes that the motion tabled by the ÖVP is contradictory in terms of content because, on the one hand, it highlights the cultural and historical significance of the bridge, but on the other, it calls for it to be demolished and rebuilt, thereby ignoring the core of the problem. "And this lies in the exorbitantly high costs that a replacement bridge would cause," says the provincial councillor, speaking of 40 million euros. An estimate that, incidentally, significantly exceeds that of her party colleague Udo Landbauer.