The chancellor and chairman of the People's Party, Wolfgang Schüssel, met on Friday evening in Wels the representatives of his party in Upper-Austria. He attempted to address the concerns of the regional party leader and governor of the region, Joseph Pühringer, about the neighbouring Czech nuclear plant of Temelín.
Schüssel wants to "keep negotiating" with the Czech government but repeated his opposition to the blockades.
Wolfgang Schüssel was also due to attend on 2 June the meeting of the Sudeten Germans Association (Sudetendeutschen Landsmannschaft) in Augsburg. He was to be honoured for his contribution to the EU enlargement process and to hold talks with the Bavarian Ministerpräsident Edmund Stoiber.
FPÖ hopes for immigration drop
The leader of the Freedom Party's (FPÖ) parliamentary group, Peter Westenthaler, declared on Friday that he hoped immigration quotas would be reduced to less than 8000 persons in 2002 (8518 persons this year).
Meanwhile, the highly controversial chairman of the FPÖ in Vienna, Hilmar Kabas, has announced that he will give up politics "about two years" before the next regional elections (in 2006). The defence minister, Herbert Scheibner, and the leader of the party's parliamentary group, Peter Westenthaler, are among his possible successors.
Carinthia sells energy shares
The government of the Land of Carinthia announced that it will sell its shares in Kärntner Elektrizität AG Kelag, the regional energy company, to the German firm RWE (Rheinisch westfälische Energieholding).
The decision of the regional authorities headed by Jörg Haider was criticised by the economy minister, Martin Bartenstein (who declared himself "surprised" that an "Austrian solution" had not been found), and by the Greens who denounced RWE's operations in the nuclear industry.
And in other news...
- A new law on criminality in force since 1 June increases the punishment for drug traffic related to a criminal organisation: the big drug dealers could now be sentenced to life imprisonment.
- According to the ORF and the Egyptian daily Al Gumhurija, the famous Al-Azhar university in Cairo is considering the possibility of opening a branch in Austria. The rector of the university has held talks this week with the Austrian ambassador in Egypt, but the procedure is in any case likely to be long, since the opening of a private institution of higher education in Austria requires the obtaining of a governmental licence.
- According to the newspaper Die Presse, Vice-Chancellor Susanne Riess-Passer plans to set up an administrative reform which would deprive 120000 high and primary school teachers from their status of civil servants. The reform plan, which comes after a similar measure in the universities and the higher education institutions, has been heavily criticised by the trade unionists.
Magali Perrault, 1 June 2001
Moving on:
Sources:
Der Standard
Die Presse
Kurier
Profil
ORF (Austrian TV)
APA (Austrian Press Agency)
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