In Austria, the corruption attorney has brought charges against a former Green Party politician and numerous entrepreneurs from the construction industry.

Christoph Chorherr, who sat for the Greens in the Vienna municipal council and state parliament as spokesman for urban planning until 2019, is accused of abuse of official authority and bribery.

Stephan Löwenstein

Political correspondent based in Vienna.

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On the one hand, it is about decisions of the municipal council, on which it had a particular influence on construction projects during the Green government participation in the city of Vienna.

On the other hand, there are donations from construction companies to an association he runs that supports educational projects in South Africa.

Entrepreneurs donate 1.6 million euros

According to the indictment, the total amount of donations made or promised is 1.6 million euros.

Canon, who resigned after the investigation became known in 2019 and resigned from the party, spoke of a mistake, but denied criminal misconduct.

Some of the accused entrepreneurs also denied the allegation of bribery.

A municipal council decision in 2017 in favor of a high-rise project in downtown Vienna caused the most sensation, but initially mainly because of its design. The so-called Heumarkt project even led UNESCO to remove Vienna's inner city from the World Heritage list because the planned high-rise will prominently change its silhouette and, above all, stand in the middle of a famous view from the Belvedere, the so-called Canaletto view. Former mayor Michael Häupl (SPÖ) had campaigned for the project, but also canon, which deeply divided the Viennese Greens.

The magazine Profil quoted in September from a chat between Chorherr and the Heumarkt investor Michael Tojner, who was evaluated by the investigators.

Accordingly, Tojner wrote to the then Green politician after the municipal council decision: “Thank you, you are great.” Canons replied: “I'm not going to publish that now.” Other chats and internal company mails were at least temporally related to donations to the said association.

"Example of a lack of transparency"

Chorherr wrote on Twitter: “Today it is clear to me that, due to my work as chairman of the association and local council, the impression could arise that there could be a connection between donations and my political actions.

Even if it was never the case. ”Tojner pointed out that the donations were not criminal.

The ÖVP, which is opposed to the city of Vienna, commented: "This red-green system of zoning, which has continued to this day even after the end of the governing coalition at that time," is "a perfect example of a lack of transparency".

The role of the Viennese SPÖ must also be clarified.