Have laws been bought in Austria under the former “turquoise-blue” center-right government of the ÖVP and FPÖ?
This question has been in the room since the former FPÖ boss Heinz-Christian Strache fell into a bug on the holiday island of Ibiza and bragged in front of a supposed oligarch niece about all kinds of business opportunities that could open up if you support his party.
A first court case against Strache, which deals with such allegations, continued on Monday after a summer break.
However, neither the testimony of the witnesses nor the repeated statements of the accused have revealed any information about the main question.
A verdict is expected for next Friday.
Stephan Löwenstein
Political correspondent based in Vienna.
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In addition to Strache, the accused is the owner of a private clinic in the Vienna district of Währing, Walter Grubmüller. For years he had campaigned for his clinic to be placed on a list that would allow medical services to be billed directly with health insurance money through a certain fund (PRIKRAF). After the FPÖ entered the government in 2017 as a coalition partner of the ÖVP, the fund was expanded by law so that the Währing private clinic could be included. The public prosecutor's office relates this process to Grubmüller's donations to the FPÖ and Strache's vacation on the entrepreneur's property on the Greek island of Corfu. She accuses them of bribery or bribery, which both rejected again on Monday.
Strache presents himself as a carer
According to the two defendants, the PRIKRAF list, which is de facto administered by the (ÖVP-affiliated) Chamber of Commerce, was unjustly kept closed and the statutory expansion of the fund was therefore the alleviation of a grievance. Grubmüller justifies his donation for the FPÖ in 2017 in the amount of 10,000 euros was a deliberate political act because all other parties did not react to the injustice. "I am the corruption victim of the corrupt Chamber of Commerce," said Grubmüller on Monday. Strache stated that he had repeatedly helped citizens with different concerns in his life. The Währing private clinic was an example of a grievance.According to Strache, the fact that the FPÖ had already submitted an initiative request to include the clinic in the PRIKRAF in the opposition, which for the public prosecutor's office is a further indication of the “improper conduct of an official business”, was, according to Strache, everyday parliamentary life.
So it was shown on Monday by two witnesses, the FPÖ politician Johannes Huebner and the former spokesman Straches. Hübner had been called in as a legal expert for the initiative application. He said that "with the best will in the world" he couldn't remember details. But it is known: "Every initiative request that comes from the opposition has no chance." Interesting finding on the practice of parliamentary opposition economics: The application corresponded to what was said at the press conference with Grubmüller, right down to the individual formulations. In order to find out from Strache why that was the case, the judge reopened the proceedings that had already been closed for the day. Strache said he assumedthat his spokesman wrote down at the time.
The fact that the proceedings were postponed over the summer was mainly due to the fact that the public prosecutor's office had found a reference to another donation from Grubmüller to the FPÖ of 2000 euros from 2016. According to their own statement, neither Grubmüller nor Strache could remember this donation. Ultimately, the court has to decide whether Grubmüller supported the FPÖ with donations because he shared their (for him) opinions, or whether the political views of the FPÖ were specifically influenced by the donations in the matter of PRIKRAF. A judgment should fall on Friday, "if nothing comes up," as the judge said.