Austria: Investigations against Sebastian Kurz are ongoing
After the political earthquake that shook Austria at the beginning of October, it has become quiet around Sebastian Kurz. The investigations are in full swing. A reconstruction of the events.
If you look at Austria these days, the coronavirus is administered – like almost everywhere else. It wasn’t that long ago that the country faced a completely different crisis. On October 9, the then Chancellor revealed his step aside. The current former chancellor and incumbent club and party chairman of the Austrian People’s Party had come under pressure from chat sessions, and let him take a deep look behind the slick scenes of Viennese politics. He and nine other accused are accused of bribery, corruption and breach of trust.
There are also other allegations. Kurz is said to have maintained proximity to major donors and, with his party, to have exceeded the election campaign cost ceiling in 2017. In Austria, parties are only allowed to spend seven million euros in the 82 days leading up to the election. According to Austrian media reports, the ÖVP is said to have spent 12.96 million euros. It was the second time that the party exceeded the financial budget in this regard. For the party this meant a hefty fine of 800,000 euros. In addition, against Kurz is being investigated for false testimony in the Ibiza committee of inquiry.
However, that is the least of the concerns that the former Chancellor should have at the moment. The Public Prosecutor for Economic Affairs and Corruption (WKStA) is currently investigating the 35-year-old because he is said to have catapulted himself to the top of the ÖVP and into the Chancellery in 2016/17, Austria. As the “advertising affair”, the story sparked a great deal of media coverage and a political tremor. The country was on the verge of a state crisis – which, however, remained a government crisis.
Kurz rejects allegations
Kurz and his closest confidants were blown after a raid in early October. Because of the suspicion of corruption, the police had searched the Chancellery and the party headquarters. According to the information provided by the WKStA, initial suspicions had already been harbored in 2016. The reason for the search was the chat history of the former Secretary General of the Ministry of Finance, Thomas Schmid. According to this, there are indications that funds from the Ministry of Finance for the publication of “exclusively politically motivated, sometimes manipulated surveys by an opinion research company” were used in the interests of Kurz. In addition, payments were made to a media company as “concealed consideration” “for the accused actually given the opportunity to influence editorial reporting in this media company”.
The media company is the influential “Media Group Austria” of the publisher Wolfgang Fellner. The free newspaper “Austria” is said to have taken up surveys that were commissioned by the pollster Sabine Beinschab and revised in accordance with the then Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz. Thomas Schmid’s chat history provides the first indications of this.
Investigations against short confidants: an overview of the accused of the advertising affair
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Sebastian Kurz enters the allegations immediately. “SMS are always taken out of context in order to construct a criminal charge,” he said. There is no evidence that he controlled the placement of the advertisements. He cannot understand “why I should always be to blame” when an injustice is done somewhere. He also “1000 percent” ruled out the accusation that he had submitted or received bogus invoices for surveys. He sees no reason to resign.
Kurz resigned from office three days later. “In this difficult time it should never be a question of personal interests or party interests. My country is more important to me than myself.” He justified this step because he wanted to prevent chaos and create stability. He continued to deny the allegations.
Expert opinion should relieve Kurz
little was heard, seen or read by the former media chancellor. After his departure, it was assumed that Kurz would return. He had always proposed Alexander Schallenberg, a former diplomat and also a brief confidante, as his successor. After taking office, he announced that he wanted to work closely with Kurz. In an interview with “Spiegel”, Schallenberg recently affirmed that Kurz can “absolutely go back into politics”. He is “responsible for someone who has enormous responsibility”. Kurz did not retire from political business.
It was more like a change of position, “a step to the side,” as Kurz himself puts it. For over a month now he has been the club and party chairman of the ÖVP – which earned him the title of “shadow chancellor”. The former Chancellor has hardly made any headlines in recent weeks. He announced on his social media channels that he had traveled to the USA and Ireland. The reasons are uncertain and give rise to speculation. Fabian Schmid, political editor at the Austrian newspaper “Der Standard”, assumed in the podcast “Inside Austria” that Kurz would scout out the job market abroad for himself. However, there is no official confirmation of this.
At the same time, there are ongoing investigations against Kurz to be weakened. Two weeks ago, the ÖVP organized a background discussion with lawyers. Recently, a public report by the criminal law professor Peter Lewisch, who criticized the work of the WKStA on 17 pages, was in the limelight. In it he accuses the investigators of “free-hand speculation” and an “unbearable distortion of the facts”. A positive reporting is not an advantage of corruption, “the activity of a politically sympathetic pollster” is a “fact that has been lived across the political spectrum for years and is completely harmless under criminal law”. That Kurz would have brought himself to the Chancellery with the help of fancy surveys and advertisements is pure speculation. The WKStA operates “storytelling” and has “no procedural competence for the objective ‘novel-like narration’ of its suspected assumptions”. The conclusion of his analysis: There is “no concrete suspicion” for Sebastian Kurz.
Immunity to Kurz lifted, now it depends on the familiar
The fact that the advertising affair does not pull the fast media along with this judicial bashing could be a problem. “This means that Sebastian Kurz lacks an important mouthpiece and it will be difficult to continue to fight this institution. Especially if you don’t do it from within the Chancellery, but only as a club chairman,” analyzes the political journalist Schmid in the podcast.
The corruption investigation continues. The Austrian parliament cleared the way for this on Thursday. The National Council unanimously lifted the immunity of the 35-year-old conservative politician. As a member of parliament and ÖVP club chairman in the National Council, Kurz was protected from prosecution. It will now be exciting to see how the other accused of the advertising affair behave. Everyone has to worry about everyone, after all, it’s a teamwork, says Fabian Schmid in the “Inside Austria” podcast.
In his opinion, pollster Sabine Beinschab is the one who can be least dangerous for a short time. After all, she was only in charge of the surveys. In addition, she was arrested a few weeks ago, the charge: destruction of evidence and risk of blackout. A few days earlier, she is said to have searched the Internet for how to delete a cloud. The arrest was only temporary. Before the pre-trial detention, Beinschab testified for several hours in front of the investigators. What she revealed is not known.
Much more dangerous could be statements of the former Secretary General in the Ministry of Finance, Thomas Schmid, whose cell phone logs had only initiated the investigation. It is unclear where Schmid is currently staying. How it ends for Kurz in the end remains to be seen. The fact that he continues to do everything possible to rid himself of the allegations is wavering.
Sources: Podcast Inside Austria, “Der Standard”, “Die Presse”, “Der Falter”, AFP