Figures presented

Upper Austria: 500 million hole in the budget for 2025 halved

Into the new year with new debt: LH Stelzer and Vice Haimbuchner (right) presented the state's budget for 2025. The state's debt level has increased to €1.4 billion. There were no real answers as to where savings will be made.

(Bild: Wenzel Markus/Markus Wenzel)

Less revenue, higher expenditure and an uncertain future: Upper Austria has to take on new debt in order to draw up a budget for next year. Liabilities are increasing. 

Upper Austria's Finance Minister Governor Thomas Stelzer (ÖVP) had already announced it in recent weeks: the state of Upper Austria must be even more careful with its spending. On September 17, the "Krone" reported unofficially on the savings order from his office across all departments: minus one percent for compulsory expenditure, minus ten percent for discretionary expenditure.

There was talk of a funding gap of 500 million euros, but what remains now is 252.8 million euros - in other words half. This is the difference between revenue (€9.152 billion) and expenditure, which at €9.405 billion is exactly this amount higher. In other words: Upper Austria has to take on new debt.

At the presentation of the budget for the coming year, Stelzer spoke of a difficult and challenging time: "We have made a very conscious decision to set priorities that Upper Austria needs as a business location and therefore also as a place to work. In order to set these priorities, we are accepting justifiable moderate debt because we are providing support precisely where we are investing in the future."

Politicians did not want to say where concrete savings would be made
The weakening economy in Europe is also having an impact on the location, "but it is also having a negative effect on the income of the public sector, i.e. the state," adds the head of the state, referring to discretionary spending. These are the sums that are transferred from the federal government to the state. It only became known in the previous week that a notification had arrived "unusually late". The state therefore found out at the end of the budget preparation that a good €100 million less was coming from Vienna. Stelzer smugly said to the government: "This is probably not related to the National Council elections."

Stelzer and Vice-President Manfred Haimbuchner did not want to say where concrete savings will be made and how this will affect projects. The introduction of a 10 percent credit freeze and where targeted investments will be made were presented - for example in the social sector (€779 million), in healthcare (€1.68 billion), in public transport (€255.4 million) or in the areas of research and science.

Deputy Governor Haimbuchner: "Nobody in Europe needs that"
In this context, Haimbuchner criticized EU regulations (such as the renaturation regulation), which "nobody in Europe needs", or regulations regarding building law, which are completely pointless, but which have to be implemented due to infringement proceedings. All of this is a bureaucratization of the EU, "which unfortunately makes massive demands on us". SPÖ, Greens and Neos criticize the budget.