State parliament session

Critical Zadra disrupts Wallner’s wellness lesson

FPÖ party leader Markus Klien described the planned city tunnel as a generational project that would relieve the burden on Feldkirch residents and benefit the economy.

(Bild: Mathis Fotografie)

The FPÖ had set the topic "Investments in the location strengthen our economy and secure jobs" for the topical hour at the state parliament session on Wednesday. Not entirely awkward. 

At the beginning of the topical hour, FPÖ parliamentary party leader Markus Klien praised the investments earmarked for road and building construction in the state budget. The generation project Feldkirch city tunnel would provide relief for the traffic-plagued population and bring benefits to the economy. The 81.5 million euros invested in building construction would also benefit the people - after all, a large part would flow into new hospital buildings or the expansion of the Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences.

What Klien did not say was that the merits of his party in this respect are small, as the budget was planned by the ÖVP. The major construction projects mentioned, now the responsibility of the two FPÖ provincial councillors, were initiated by their black predecessors.

Governor Markus Wallner (ÖVP), for whom the cooperation with the new blue government partner must seem like a wellness vacation, liked the choice of topics. He took the opportunity to add how much local businesses would benefit. Around 80 percent of construction contracts are awarded in the country, and more than 15 percent in Austria. 

Annoyed by the city tunnel discussion
The state is also committed to labor market policy: "Together with the AMS, we are investing 52 million euros - the rate is higher than that of the city tunnel," noted Wallner, who was visibly annoyed by the criticism of the major project. "We should explain to entrepreneurs and employees how we want to support the economy and not have a city tunnel debate for the umpteenth time. I'm annoyed by the way they want to leave people hanging in a really unpleasant situation, with daily traffic jams and poor air quality," Wallner scolded the Greens.

Their club chairman Daniel Zadra had previously sharply criticized the investment budget of the governing parties and the major city tunnel project. "They think exclusively in terms of investments in concrete and cement and boast about wasting hundreds of millions of euros of taxpayers' money," Zadra ranted.

Instead of investing in the people and the future, he said, the Black-Blue coalition was cutting back on social services. "On Sunday they talk about the most promising living space for children, on Monday they make cuts," Zadra said, annoyed by, among other things, the reduction of 10,000 therapy hours for children and young people.