Reinhard Bösch

“Insisting on ministries was not out of place”

Reinhard Bösch was provincial party leader of the Vorarlberg FPÖ from 2016 to 2018.

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Why did the coalition talks between the Blue and Black parties at federal level fail? And why does cooperation between the ÖVP and FPÖ work at state level? Former Vorarlberg FPÖ state party leader Reinhard Bösch has the answers.  

FPÖ veteran Reinhard Bösch regrets that the Freedom Party will neither provide the Federal Chancellor nor other members of government. In his view, the reasons for the failure of the coalition talks are of a substantive nature; the negotiating partners simply did not come together on certain issues. "The insistence on the two ministries - Interior and Finance - was not misplaced in my view, however," explains Bösch. As far as the Ministry of the Interior was concerned, the agendas corresponded to the core competencies of the FPÖ. "Especially when it comes to illegal immigration, the ÖVP has not exactly shone in recent years."

Bösch takes a hard line with the Blacks when it comes to financial policy. "The dog that the ÖVP has bred is buried in the Ministry of Finance," says the Dornbirn native. The ÖVP is clearly responsible for the huge budget deficit. Not least because of the corona aid that the party distributed to its clientele in business circles and even the senior citizens' associations in the federal states.

Limited powers
The fact that the cooperation between state governor Markus Wallner (ÖVP) and state governor Christof Bitschi (FPÖ) works well at state level is by no means due to the fact that the Blue Party is easier to deal with than the Greens. "The topics are more congruent. There is agreement on issues relating to transport or the economy," Bösch sums up. It is also crucial that the importance of the issues to be dealt with is limited. "The state simply has limited powers - it's about spatial planning, hunting and the like."