Wishes for the government

Who should save our ailing industry?

Smoking chimneys as a symbol of a flourishing industry - but the situation is currently bleak.

(Bild: Scharinger Daniel/Pressefoto Scharinger © Daniel Scharinger)

On Friday, the two provincial governors and industrialists from Upper Austria and Lower Austria presented a package of demands to save the industrial location. The addressee is the future federal government yet to be formed. The problem: the wish list is not politically feasible, unless ...

More and longer working hours, a higher retirement age, lower ancillary wage costs, cheaper energy, no new taxes: The demands put forward by regional politicians and industrialists from Upper Austria and Lower Austria on Friday are well known. At the "Industry Summit" in the Linz Landhaus, they were cast in a seven-point program - presented by the provincial governors Thomas Stelzer and Johanna Mikl-Leitner (both ÖVP) and the presidents of the Federation of Austrian Industries, Stefan Pierer (Upper Austria) and Kari Ochsner (Lower Austria).

The Greens are to blame - says the ÖVP
The latter in particular painted a gloomy picture: Austria is lagging behind the EU in terms of economic growth, domestic industry is heading for its third consecutive year of crisis, costs are high and bureaucracy is paralyzing. According to Mikl-Leitner, the ÖVP, which has held the position of Economics Minister since 1987, is not to blame for any of this: "There was no cooperation here with the Greens."

We work too little and not intensively enough. We promote underperformance. We don't need new taxes, we need to do more.

Stefan Pierer, Präsident der Industriellenvereinigung Oberösterreich

Powerful industrial states
That is why the future federal government - "no matter what it looks like" - is now being presented with a "location rescue package", which includes the reintroduction of an investment premium, an increase in the research premium and an apprenticeship premium. The word from Upper Austria and Lower Austria carries weight in this respect: the manufacturing industry in the two federal states together accounts for 43 percent of Austria's industrial value added.

Mikl-Leitner and Stelzer (front) as well as Pierer and - hidden - Ochsner in the Linz Landhaus.

(Bild: Land OÖ/Mayr)

SPÖ and FPÖ fall away
However, it is completely unclear who the addressee of the demands should be, as there is currently no coalition in terms of real politics that would implement them. The ÖVP cannot count on the SPÖ here, as it largely holds diametrically opposed positions - the keywords being a reduction in working hours and wealth tax. According to the ÖVP, the FPÖ, with whom the demands are most likely to be implemented, is out of the coalition race as long as its leader is Herbert Kickl.

So should the ÖVP accept Kickl as a partner? IV boss Pierer has a clear, albeit somewhat veiled, opinion on this: "I spend a lot of time in Switzerland. There, the two parties with the most votes have to form a government. There is no need for Van der Bellen."