Land sale in Salzburg: SPÖ turns on the public prosecutor
The work of the land traffic commissions in Salzburg’s Pinzgau and their control becomes a case for the judiciary: after a devastating audit report by the State Audit Office (LRH), the SPÖ state parliament club submits a statement of facts to the Economic and Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (WKStA). The commissions are said to have “largely disregarded” the rule of law.
Buyers were not farmers
The real estate commissions examine – and approve or prohibit – the sale of agricultural and forestry land in order to prevent a “sell-out of the homeland” and to secure rural agriculture or forestry. Therefore, such properties may only be purchased by farmers, the price must be customary for the location and the formation or expansion of large estates or acquisition as a pure capital investment are not permitted. If a non-farmer wants to buy, the legal transaction must be announced so that a farmer can still buy at the usual local price.
In the review period from 2013 to 2020, the Pinzgau commissions decided on 1,478 land sales. 409 of these areas (28 percent) went to non-farmers, with 31 of these non-farmers buying twice or twice: one buyer six times, two buyers five times each, three buyers four times each, eight three times and 17 twice.
“There are many victims”
“These are probably strategic investors who have received the appropriate support from the land traffic commission, otherwise it would not be possible for German or Swiss building contractors, car dealers, lawyers, tourism experts and even a Viennese foundation to buy in. Partly on a grand scale, which resulted in the fact that large estates were owned,” said SPÖ agricultural spokeswoman Karin Döllinger. She wants to help victims: “There are so many victims who are now turning to us.”
SPÖ sees “systematic misjudgments”
The description of the facts concerns two points. Firstly, the commissions did not just make wrong decisions once or a few times, but hundreds of times, “that was systematic”. The second point concerns the control “which not only showed deficiencies, but all of a sudden did not find anything at all”. The SPÖ had the situation legally examined, and the commissioned law firm was of the opinion that the cause was worth investigating, which is why a statement of the facts is now being submitted.
Agrarian Councilor Josef Schwaiger (ÖVP) was already responsible for the control in his preferred function as head of the agricultural department of the state, and then as a state councilor. His justification that it was a commission free from instructions was useless, “because the supervisory authority is responsible for checking whether something was right or wrong,” said Wanner.
Guarantee for landscape maintenance
One does not want to slap anyone because of an individual case, “but to turn off a system that is still being used today. Our land is too valuable to be relinquished to investors. We are called upon to leave it in the hands of ‘real’ local farmers, who preserve it as a guarantor for landscape conservation and produce healthy food from it – a topic that has become immensely important in recent weeks,” says Dollinger.
ÖVP speaks of bad style
In a first reaction, the ÖVP speaks of a “last-class political style of the SPÖ”. ÖVP club chairman Wolfgang Mayer: “In this specific case, it’s doubly perfidious, because the report doesn’t hit the department head, but countless volunteer members of the basic traffic commissions, who are now finding themselves in investigations that will probably last years.” The SPÖ has also not contributed to the law currently under review.