Lucian Brunner: Language Struggle and Nationality Conflict 1900

European Diary, 15.4.2021: 107 years ago today, the former Viennese councillor Lucian Brunner died in Vienna. He was born in Hohenems on September 29, 1850, the son of Marco Brunner and Regina Brettauer. Lucian’s father, like most of his brothers and cousins, had left for Trieste in their youth to participate in the lively textile trade between St. Gallen and the Mediterranean, with which the Brunner family began its steep economic rise. Later Marco Brunner went to St. Gallen, where he represented the family’s business in Switzerland and soon also managed the “Bankhaus Jakob Brunner”, from which UBS was later to emerge.
In 1883, Lucian Brunner also joined his father’s private bank in St. Gallen as a partner. Soon after, in 1889, Lucian and his wife Malwine Mandel settled in Vienna, where he founded his own banking business but also became active as an industrialist and politician. He was active in a small liberal party, the “Vienna Democrats,” for which he was a member of the Vienna City Council from 1896 to 1901, as well as chairman of the “Democratic Central Association” and publisher of the associated newspaper “Volksstimme. In the Vienna Municipal Council he repeatedly opposed the anti-Semitic mayor Karl Lueger, where he contradicted the ever louder nationalist slogans. In the dispute over the Baden language ordinance, he took a moderating stance in the face of the surging hostility toward the Czechs. He took the view that the German lingua franca should be defended not with nationalist resentment but on the grounds of reason, without devaluing the language minorities in the Reich. “The representation of the city of Vienna (…) must keep in mind that it is not merely the center of a country inhabited by one nationality, but by many nationalities, and it should therefore be prevented that any other nationality of the Empire believes that this resolution contains a point, a hostility against it. (…) It has been customary in Austria for years that a policy of slogans is pursued, and one of the quickest of these slogans is the nationality dispute and the nationality quarrel. When a political party doesn’t know what to do, it starts to provoke nationality quarrels.” When representatives of the Czech minority in Vienna demanded a new school for themselves in October 1897, he also distanced himself from the national furor and called for pluralism to be allowed – referring to his own experiences as a member of the German minority in Trieste. Instead, he was insulted as a “Jew” in the local council. “It is precisely the coercion with which one wanted to force the peoples of Austria to become German that has damaged Germanism. (…) We want the right for our minorities, therefore we ourselves must nowhere suppress the right of a minority! Moreover, it does not befit the great German cultural nation to say that we are afraid of this Czech school in Favoriten. (…) I am a Jew, as you quite rightly say, and gentlemen, I am glad that I am one.”
He became a complete bogeyman of the Christian Socialists with his protest against a planned church building subsidy of the Christian Socialist majority. Lucian Brunner filed a lawsuit against this breach of the state’s religious neutrality, which was ultimately successful before the Supreme Court. He thus defended the constitutionally guaranteed separation of church and state – and now became a popular target of ongoing anti-Semitic attacks, in Vienna as well as in Vorarlberg. Lucian Brunner’s first wife, Malwine, died during these campaigns, which also affected the Brunner family personally.
Brunner always remained in close contact with his home community of Hohenems. For example, he donated considerable sums for the construction of the hospital and the gymnasium. On several occasions he also tried, in cooperation with Hohenems liberals and the Rosenthal family of factory owners, to realize tramway projects in Hohenems that would connect Hohenems with the Swiss railroad on the other side of the Rhine or even with Lustenau. A final tramway project, which in 1911 was to connect the Hohenems train station with the Rosenthal factory in the south of the market town, also failed to materialize, as the economic situation had in the meantime taken a heavy toll on the Rosenthal company. In Hohenems, too, the Christian Socialists were meanwhile agitating against the “Jew” Brunner-and against the Rosenthals, who would “cram” the school with Italian children.

Brunner remained a liberal throughout his life, even though at the end of his life he supported the Zionist movement in Vienna, probably out of disappointment with the political developments in Austria. When he died in Vienna on April 15, 1914, he left a legacy for an interdenominational school in his home community. The Hohenems municipal council did not accept the bequest. An interdenominational school was not desired.

Flashback, April 15, 2020: U.S. President Trump declares that the peak of the Corona pandemic has passed. And announces that the USA will stop its payments to the World Health Organization (WHO). German Development Minister Müller, on the other hand, declares that he will increase payments to the WHO: “The WHO must now be strengthened, not weakened. Cutting funding in the midst of a pandemic is absolutely the wrong way to go.”

Trump also decides that the “emergency checks” announced by the U.S. government to some 70 million needy people in the U.S. – to the tune of $1200 – should bear his name, in the midst of an election campaign that is about to begin. This has never happened before in American history.
Trump is threatening to send Parliament into forced recess on the grounds that he wants to fill vacancies without parliamentary participation. The possibility of ordering a parliamentary recess has also never been used by an American president. Trump plays on circulating conspiracy theories at a press conference, e.g. that the virus came from a Chinese lab.

EU Commission President van der Leyen, meanwhile, is calling for more commonality among EU members, saying, “A lack of coordination in lifting restrictions risks negative effects for all member states and would likely lead to an increase in tensions among member states. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to the crisis, but member states should at least keep each other informed,” the EU authority in Brussels warns. Van der Leyen announces a recovery plan for Europe that will include a common fund.

On the Greek islands, 40,000 refugees continue to be held in camps under inhumane conditions. Today, 12 (in words TWELVE) children from Syria and Afghanistan will be flown out of Athens to Luxembourg. Luxembourg is thus the first of eleven countries to show willingness to take in a few unaccompanied or sick minors from the camps. In addition to Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Croatia, Finland, Ireland, Portugal and Lithuania are participating in the rescue operation. On Saturday, 58 children are to follow to Germany. The Austrian government still refuses to help, although many mayors have now offered to take in new refugees.

 

Gambled

European Diary, March 23, 2021: Apparently, Austria’s Chancellor Kurz has now completely lost his way. Here is the current summary of a week of Austrian own goals. One more grotesque than the other.

Not quite two weeks ago, Kurz announced a “European scandal.” Looking at the different vaccination progress in various EU states, it was apparent that some states were moving faster than others. And that was indeed, due to different delivery rates. Kurz linked this to an alleged “bazaar” that favored some countries. The accusation had been around for barely half a day before it was exposed as a propaganda lie. There was a simple reason for the differences in supply volumes. Some countries wanted more of the more expensive Biontech, others more of the cheaper Astra Zeneca vaccine. And then there were the well-known supply problems at Astra Zeneca. You can work out the result for yourself.
It also quickly became clear that it was not least governments with a – how shall we put it – pronounced “EU skepticism” (e.g. Austria’s) that had prevented the EU Commission from simply distributing the vaccines evenly according to population size. No, they wanted to determine for themselves who received how much of which vaccine.

Austria, by the way, happened to be right in the middle on the overall balance of deliveries. Compared with the other countries, Austria had received neither too little nor too much.

But then the next gust burst. The chancellor heard that the Austrian representative on the EU steering committee had apparently missed an opportunity to secure a few additional orders. The fact that Kurz did not want to know anything about this prompted the otherwise calm political scientist Peter Filzmaier to ask on Austrian radio what “Chancellor Kurz actually does for a living”. Now the “culprit, an old ÖVP veteran, was fittingly sitting in the Green Ministry of Health, which gave the chancellor the opportunity to publicly show off the Minister of Health, who had just been prevented from attending due to illness. And to have nothing to do with it himself. All this without anyone noticing that there is now a significant gap between “order” and “deliver. In other words, if Clemens Martin Auer had placed his additional order, no more vaccines would have arrived in Austria in the foreseeable future. In any case, more vaccines have already been ordered than Austria needs.

After this “scandal” also vanished into thin air faster than anyone could watch, Kurz became the advocate of the “short-changed” and categorically demanded an EU summit. Which, however, was just around the corner anyway.

In view of the truly unequal supply volumes affecting some Eastern European countries, such as Bulgaria, Croatia and Lithuania, the EU Commission now wanted to show action on its part. And announced a negotiating success with Biontech.
10 million doses are now to be brought forward from the fall and will benefit the countries with poorer supplies in particular, even though they may basically have only themselves to blame for their malaise. But what does one not do to calm the spirits.
As soon as this warm rain of additional cans appeared on the horizon, the Austrian chancellor changed his shirt again and proudly announced that Austria (so far neither disadvantaged nor advantaged) would be entitled to 400,000 from these new deliveries and let himself be celebrated for it. But even this celebration lasted only a short time. After all, Austria would now enrich itself at the expense of the previously disadvantaged. The announcement from Brussels, but also from other EU countries, was not long in coming. Austria is to expect times at the moment exactly zero additional doses. Now the Austrian chancellor stands before the shambles of his own scandal. And threatens with a veto.

At least he has managed to distract from things that could have really gotten in the way of his anti-EU rhetoric. The scandal and Hygiene Austria and other problems with “message control.” And then there’s the South African mutation in Tyrol. Not at all bureaucratic, the EU had reacted to the hotspot of the South African mutation in Tyrol. And led the district of Schwaz out of the crisis with a generous emergency supply of vaccines. Now, of course, everyone wants that, too. But this actual favoritism of Austria has really not lent itself to scoring points in Austria with anti-EU propaganda. In any case, Kurz got this problem out of the way in the short term.

Flashback, 23.3.2020: Two Boeing of the airline AUA fly in 130 tons of medical protection material from China for Tyrol and South Tyrol. The airlift is celebrated with great media attention as a spectacular success by Chancellor Kurz and South Tyrol’s Governor Kompatscher. The mountain sports outfitter Oberalp Group is also celebrating itself for the relief action. A total of 20 million protective masks are to be delivered. A short time later, however, the protective masks delivered turn out to be largely unusable. Certificates, without which the goods should not have been imported, are completely missing. Only 1.7 million masks out of 20 million already paid for are finally delivered at all.

The EU Commission asks the member states to ensure that the flow of goods within the EU is maintained by setting up green lanes with priority for freight traffic, in view of the threat of further border closures that could lead to supply bottlenecks for vital goods.

Vaccination Nationalism

European Diary, 20.3.2021: The dispute over the distribution of vaccines in the EU is further fueled by the Austrian Chancellor. Last year, the EU Commission’s plan to distribute vaccines fairly among all EU countries was torpedoed, not least by countries like Austria, which wanted to choose their own vaccines – within the limits of the total quantities allocated according to population size. As a result, countries that relied on the cheap vaccine from Astra Zeneca, such as Bulgaria or Croatia, are currently losing out due to the production and delivery difficulties of the British supplier. And those that relied on the expensive Biontech vaccine, such as Malta or Denmark, are currently doing better.
Austria, however, has so far received neither too much nor too little vaccine, measured against the quantities available. But that did not stop the Austrian chancellor from proclaiming himself the spokesman for the “too short”. And to publicly attack his own Ministry of Health.

Apparently, the Austrian representative on the EU vaccine panel, Clemens Martin Auer, a veteran ÖVP man, missed an opportunity to do exactly what Chancellor Kurz is now accusing others of doing, namely placing another extra order at the “bazaar.” Whether this would have led to a faster delivery of vaccine doses may be doubted. Austria and the entire EU have already ordered far more vaccine doses than would be needed to vaccinate the population this year. The current delays are obviously not due to hesitant orders, but to slow deliveries.

A few days before the next EU summit, Kurz is calling for an EU summit. This demand sounds as if he were emphatically calling for sunrise after sunset, only to announce a success a few hours later.

EU Commission President von der Leyen announced a few days ago that the delivery of a further 10 million doses from Biontech-Pfizer could now be brought forward, after there were delivery problems from this manufacturer just a few weeks ago. With these doses now countries could be preferred, which bet with their orders in the last year on the wrong map. The fact that Austria, which has so far neither benefited nor been disadvantaged, is now making additional demands does not go down well with them, of course. After all, the attempt to compensate for the different delivery quantities with these additional Biontech vaccine doses depends on the willingness of some countries to voluntarily forego part of the deliveries to which they are entitled as agreed. The vaccination nationalism fomented by Austria is not really helpful in this regard.

Lithuania, meanwhile, is making a grand gesture of announcing that it will now allow its citizens to decide which vaccine they want to be vaccinated with. This, too, is obviously just a propaganda coup. Because the choice between Astra Zeneca and Biontech apparently consists primarily of getting vaccinated now or sometime later. Since there is too little of both, the Lithuanian government is at least gaining a little time – and its citizens: nothing.

Flashback 20.3.2020: Israeli historian Yuval Harari sees “the first coronavirus dictatorship” emerging in Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu is apparently using the Corona crisis and the imposed lockdown to secure a fifth term and break opposition to his reappointment, while the trial for fraud, embezzlement and bribery waits and waits for him.

Boris Johnson, meanwhile, is announcing what appears to him to be the toughest anti-Corona measure yet on the British Isle: “We’re taking away the ancient, inalienable right of free-born people of the United Kingdom to go to the pub.”

In an interview with the German Bild-Zeitung, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz explains that it was a phone call from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that woke him up. He probably means the telephone conference of numerous EU prime ministers on March 9, in which Netanyahu had also participated. Netanyahu would have meant, Kurz said, “you underestimate this in Europe.” The dramatic situation in neighboring Italy since early March apparently has not been enough to wake up the Austrian chancellor.

The EU Commission is reacting to the expected economic problems in the wake of the pandemic and its control. It is now allowing exceptions to the strict rules designed to limit distortions of competition caused by government subsidies. It has adopted a temporary framework that allows member states to grant economic aid within a short period of time.

Bazaar?

European Diary, 12.3.2021: In a specially convened press conference, Austria’s Chancellor Kurz claims to have uncovered a European scandal. According to Kurz, the distribution of vaccines was like a “bazaar,” and individual European countries had secured additional supplies of vaccine doses through secret side agreements. As a result, some European countries were favored and others disadvantaged: “The delivery was not based on a population key.” But apparently as with “the Orientals.” Or what do you think Kurz is trying to say with his choice of words?

The vaccination progress in Malta and Denmark is much faster than in countries like Bulgaria, Latvia or Croatia. This could not only be due to the speed of vaccination. Kurz senses secret contracts for additional supplies and demands “transparency.”
But the accusations made with grandiose gestures have already collapsed within a few hours, like a house of cards. And a lot of porcelain has been smashed in the process.

Perhaps he could have asked the deputy chairman of the responsible “Steering Board” of the EU beforehand how the different delivery speeds to the various EU states come about, namely the Austrian representative on the “Steering Board”: Clemens-Martin Auer?
The answers to the Chancellor’s murmuring questions are staggeringly simple. The EU signed framework agreements with most of the pharmaceutical companies working on vaccines at an early stage, long before it was clear which ones could be approved first. They have had to back different horses in the process, and some of their order volumes have made vaccine research possible in the first place. Since some EU member states were basically on the brakes when it came to spending (we remember the “frugal four”, first and foremost Austria), there was probably also an attempt to push down prices. This is now taking its revenge.
And then the EU gave the member states the opportunity – within the limits of their respective delivery volumes – to opt more for one vaccine or another, for example for the more expensive Biontech-Pfizer or the cheaper AstraZeneca vaccines. Malta, for example, booked as much as possible Biontech-Pfizer and Bulgaria as much as possible AstraZeneca, whose deliveries have just been slowed by massive production and export problems.

But what do such banal realities interest a chancellor who is just dealing with the fact that “message control” is slipping away from him. Hans Rauscher speaks in the Standard of the “biggest smoke grenade since the beginning of the Corona crisis.” That could turn out to be an understatement. For if the incitement of vaccination nationalism spreads, we would be dealing with an even more dangerous pandemic.

So far, however, the Austrian chancellor stands alone with his tall tales. Neither the EU Commission, nor the Austrian Ministry of Health, neither Germany nor allegedly disadvantaged Croatia have hesitated even for a day to distance themselves from this rampage. And have factually and diplomatically clarified the little sensational facts. After all, this is a day on which secret side agreements, the exploitation of illegal workers or the obscure supply chains of “Hygiene Austria” do not make the headlines. That is a “good day” for the chancellor.

Review 12.3.2020: Contrary to the decisions of the video conference of 10.3.2020, Austria surprised its Italian neighbors yesterday with border controls at the Brenner Pass. Apparently without having previously agreed with the Italian government.

The WHO has now declared the rampant Covid-19 disease a pandemic.
U.S. President Donald Trump has it all figured out. He announced a ban on Europeans entering the country: “Because we responded very early, we’re seeing significantly fewer cases of the virus in America than in Europe.”

Boris Johnson and the British government’s chief scientific adviser today publicly announced their strategy for fighting Corona: “It is now impossible to prevent almost everyone from contracting the disease. (…) That is not at all what is wanted. After all, the population is supposed to build up immunity to the virus.” They expect the epidemic to peak in May and June and only then want to take drastic measures. To delay the wave of infection, first of all, starting immediately, any person who gets a cough and/or fever should stay at home for seven days, not go to the doctor and not call the emergency services, which are already overloaded.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Supply Chaines

European Diary, 3.3.2021: Austria’s Chancellor Kurz says he no longer wants to be dependent on the EU and wants to look into producing his own vaccines together with Denmark and Israel. The science editor of the ORF (Austrian Broadcast), Günter Mayer, comments dryly on this move, saying that this is “not a matter of squeezing an apple”. Such complex production could not be ramped up in a short time by decree, and here Austria would have to deal with pharmaceutical companies whose sales are higher than the Austrian national budget. Not to go into further painful detail: the Chancellor’s grandiose announcements are obviously hot air intended to distract from other problems. E.g. from the following: On the same day it became known that in an Austrian showpiece enterprise, the company “Hygiene Austria”, which manufactures mouth nose protective masks, a house search took place. This is actually the company about which Sebastian Kurz proudly tweeted in May 2020: “The Corona crisis has shown that we must not rely entirely on international supply chains for the production of important protective equipment.”

The raid was carried out on suspicion that masks supplied from China had been relabeled in Austria by workers employed illegally without social security contributions and sold at a higher price than Chinese masks. Hygiene Austria’ has firmly denied this and of course the presumption of innocence applies. Piquantly, there is a close relationship of the company to a close associate of the chancellor, as already reported on August 4, 2020, the research platform Addendum: the husband of Sebastian Kurz’ head of office has a 25% stake in one of the two companies to which “Hygiene Austria” belongs, and which is now to ensure Austria’s mask self-sufficiency with large government contracts. And managing director Tino Wieser of “Hygiene Austria” is their brother-in-law. (https://www.addendum.org/coronavirus/vertragsdetails-geheim/)

The vaunted autarky seems to be faltering. But as a slogan for national awakening – and for distraction from the slowly accumulating investigations and house searches in the closer political circle of confidants of the chancellor – relabeled Chinese masks are probably also suitable. Or perhaps in the future also relabeled vaccines?

The number of corona deaths continues to grow. In the U.S., more than 500,000 people have long since died from the pandemic. New reports of irregularities in the disclosure of deaths in shelters, such as those just shaking the hitherto heroic reputation of New York State’s Democratic governor, Mario Cuomo, suggest an unknown dark figure of dead. Which are likely to exist in other states as well. These dark figures appear to be particularly high in Russia and Mexico when excess mortality is considered as a factor. Even the Russian government does not trust their own official figures. it is said that only 57,000 people in Russia had died from covid-19 by the end of 2020 and about 81,000 by mid-February, whereas excess mortality in Russia in 2020 claimed 323,000 lives. Shortly before the turn of the year, even Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova declared that 81 percent of excess mortality was due to Covid-19. This would correspond to almost 261,000 deaths from Covid-19 by the end of 2020, while other calculations put the number of deaths at well over 300,000.
Russia, which is proud of having introduced the first vaccine, “Sputnik V,” is using the apparently highly effective vaccine primarily as an export hit, for example to Mexico and Serbia, Paraguay and Egypt, while vaccinating its own population is taking a back seat. This leads to the paradoxical result that Sputnik V will possibly help to combat Covid-19 in poorer countries. At least, if it succeeds in ramping up planned production in Brazil and India. In Russia itself, especially beyond the metropolis of Moscow, it appears that herd immunity by infection continues to be the most common prescription for acquiring antibodies.

Addendum on March 9, 2021: In the meantime, the allegations against “Hygiene Austria” and the two parent companies Lenzing and Palmers have been substantiated. While “Hygiene Austria” CEO Tino Wieser still talks about how “proud” he is to have created 200 jobs in Austria, it has become known that these are mainly in dummy companies. Bogus companies that either employ workers officially on a “marginal” basis, but actually have them work full time on the black market, or that get rid of social security contributions by going bankrupt in time. Also subsidies for not effected short-time work had been raked in. Also the suspicion that the “domestic” production partly took place in China, but that the masks were then repacked by illegal workers in “Hygiene Austria” cartons, now seems to be confirmed.

Flashback, early March, 2020: the EU is co-financing the delivery of 25 tons of protective equipment to China. The European Commission reminds national governments in Europe to report their needs for protective masks, test kits and respirators. But it will be weeks before the first requirements come through.
The first cases of Covid-19 are being reported in the United Kingdom. Dominic Cummings, advisor to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, summarizes the British government’s strategy as “herd immunity, protect the economy and if that means some pensioners die, too bad.” No. 10 Downing Street denies.

Donald Trump has also spoken out again on Covid-19: “It’s a flu, like a flu.”

The Limits of Tirol

European diary, 11.2.2021: The mind shift came as a surprise. And one does not quite believe in it yet. Even on the weekend, one heard from Innsbruck mainly strong language and threats against Vienna. More precisely, against the (Green) Ministry of Health. And manifold attempts to somehow resist with embellished figures the recognition of the fact that in the Tyrolean district of Schwaz and especially in the Zillertal a South African and apparently particularly vicious mutation of the Corona virus is rampant, with the highest numbers in Europe.

Once again, the Austrian chancellor seemed to be ripping off his coalition “partner” and kept nobly silent about the Tyrolean rides. There was talk of an unsuccessful call in Innsbruck. That was it for now.

“Then you will get to know us” was what Tyrol’s Chamber of Commerce President Walser told those evil Viennese who demanded quarantine measures – and on the Austrian TV news ZIB 2 on Monday, as a bonus, so to speak, to the rantings of the weekend, he also presented his epidemiological “expertise” on the events of Ischgl.

It will soon be a year since the small town in Paznaun became the super-spreader of the new virus. How this happened has now been clarified to some extent. It was covered up and lied about as long as it somehow worked out. Until thousands of Corona-infected people from Bavaria to Iceland were detected as a result of careless après-ski. And then it was silent.
But that is, so Walser nevertheless not at all the crucial question. It was not yet known “from where” the virus had been brought to Ischgl. Had anyone claimed that the Tyroleans had bred the virus in a snow cannon?

Walser’s complaint about Tyrol bashing somehow sounded disturbingly familiar. As if politicians and business officials had learned nothing from the disaster, even a year later, other than that someone else always has to be to blame.

Meanwhile, borders are now being controlled again. Bavaria is planning to close the borders to Tyrol. Austria did not want to stand back there and controlled already on Monday with demonstrative stringency incoming and above all commuters at the border between Lindau and Bregenz, even if the so-called “incidence” in Lindau is only half as high as in the neighboring Vorarlberg. But even so, one can give the impression that everything dangerous basically comes from the outside.

It is clear that the Tyrolean hospitality industry and even more so the cable car industry are facing an existential crisis in the wake of the pandemic. In this situation, taking a golf vacation in South Africa, as one Zillertal hotelier did, is not really confidence-building. News about illegal lodgings and parties, ski instructor courses with clusters of mutations and tricky registrations of second residences are equally untrustworthy. And then the powerful chairman of the Economic Association and ÖVP National Councilor Franz Hörl, the head of the legendary “Adlerrunde” that calls the shots in Tyrol – himself infected by the British mutation – goes into quarantine without having a clue where he got it. Shouldn’t one worry about whether dangerous recklessness is still at work in Tyrol? Above all, self-pity. According to Governor Platter, one should finally stop pointing the finger at Tyrol.
As it says on Franz Hörl’s website? “Tyrol goes first.” Classic populism sounds like that. You always go first yourself.
But today it sounds somehow misleading. It goes on to say: “When Franz Hörl steps onto the scene, speed is the order of the day. At times he seems to double up, appearing in parallel” … “Franz is on the spot. Especially when there’s a fire. (…) That’s the only way to do politics that helps.” And: “Hörl talks Tyrol”. That sounds like this: The travel warning issued on Monday against Tyrol, was – so Hörl on Monday – a “burp from Vienna”.

A megalomaniac is speaking, a “macher” who wants to embody the balancing act between “host” and cable car industrialist, between a “mensch” and a functionary, and who can do this as long as he is successful. And he can’t do one thing that is particularly needed at the moment. To question himself and his actions once in a while.
Someone has now finally stepped on the emergency brake. Anyone leaving Tyrol as of Friday will now need an up-to-date Corona test.

Perhaps the chancellor has called his party colleague Platter once again. The instinct to know when a story is about to fall on his feet has apparently not yet completely left Mr. Kurz. But at that point the “speed” may already have been a bit lacking.

Ischgl 2.0 ?

European Diary, 29.11.2020: Austria has managed to get to the top again, this time not as a poster boy for anti-corona measures, but as a corona hotspot together with France and Italy. The number of corona victims in all three countries now exceeds the record number of deaths in the USA in relative terms.

What is being discussed in Italy and France, in Belgium and in Germany? How to prevent Christmas and ski tourism from undoing the hesitant success of the second lockdown. After all, Austria was already at the top, in the production of contagions and in the impudence with which one first wanted to cover them up, then play them down and then forget them. To this day, Austria, Ischgl and Tyrol, those responsible for the disaster have never apologized to anyone, even though the small town in the Paznaun valley was the most infectious place in Europe during the first corona wave of the year. And this for reasons that have not changed at all to this day: the budding of a few “real men” in the cable car business and in politics, who have not yet understood that economic success also goes hand in hand with growing responsibility. And probably with a few other things as well.

So now the Bavarians and the Italians and the French are thinking about how to slow down and postpone skiing and everything that goes with it this winter. And they still remember very well that Austria was one of the first states to make some borders tighter again with travel warnings and quarantine threats. As Chancellor Kurz said so beautifully on August 16: “The virus comes to Austria by car.

What is being discussed in Austria? Whether the ski resorts should be allowed to open again as early as next week. And Finance Minister Blümel already knows who should pay if the tourists from Germany and Italy, from France and Switzerland simply don’t come. The EU, of course. He has not yet revealed why “the EU” should do this. Neither can the EU close ski resorts in Austria, nor force the Germans to ski in Ischgl. But it should pay.

Veto and no Sputnik Shock?

European Diary, 20.11.2020: The cabal was to be expected. The fact that the majority of EU members now want to get serious about tying EU funding to compliance with constitutional standards has led to the announced veto by Poland and Hungary against the EU budget, and thus also against the 750 billion in aid to cope with the economic, social and health policy consequences of the Corona crisis. Yesterday’s special EU summit did not change anything about the blockade of the EU budget by Poland and Hungary.

An EU rule-of-law procedure under Article 7 of the EU Treaty is already underway against both countries due to numerous and growing restrictions on freedom of the press and opinion, the independence of the judiciary and the sciences. Hungary and Poland leave out few opportunities to repeatedly sound out how far they can go with this.
Viktor Orban now claims that in reality the EU is trying to force Hungary to accept migrants and receives applause from the FPÖ in Vienna.

Both Poland and Hungary are indeed suffering from rampant emigration – well educated young people leaving Hungary and Poland to seek their fortune elsewhere. The expulsion of the Central European University from Budapest is only one link in a long chain of discouraging events that accelerate this bloodletting.

The EU, on the other hand, is not least concerned about the rampant corruption, which can no longer be fought by an intimidated judiciary. And the lack of public control of corrupt government action in the face of a press landscape that, in Hungary for example, is already almost entirely in the hands of Viktor Orban and his followers.

The laboriously negotiated compromise between the Council, the EU Commission and Parliament provides that a qualified majority of 15 states in the Council, representing at least 65% of the population of the EU, can block EU funds if there is a threat that the use of these funds is no longer subject to democratic, constitutional control. This is at least a first signal to the governments in Warsaw and Budapest, probably also to others who may feel that they are meant here.

Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa is now also attacking the German Council Presidency for wanting to implement the compromise negotiated in the Council only a few days ago with Slovenian approval. Jansa himself, of course, does not threaten to veto it. Probably because he does not really know what he is getting himself into.

The veto of Poland and Hungary could turn out to be a boomerang. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is already threatening to continue the regular EU budget as an emergency budget and to adopt the Corona Fund as a bilateral agreement between the other 25 states, with Poland and Hungary then going away empty-handed. In the meantime, Poland and Hungary are practicing war rhetoric. They are waging a “freedom fight” against “slavery”. This is not badly received by the Polish population. Hungary, on the other hand, ignited the next stage of escalation.

Viktor Orban demonstratively relies on the Russian vaccine Sputnik V in the fight against Covid-19, although the EU states have agreed on a joint distribution of vaccines approved in the EU. Russia’s space probe Sputnik 1 triggered the Sputnik shock in the West in 1957, because Russia had succeeded in launching the first artificial earth satellite, even before the USA. Sputnik 1 transmitted a short wave signal and finally burnt up in the Earth’s atmosphere after 92 days of beeping. The Sputnik V mission was already a test for manned space flights. On board were two dogs, 40 mice and two rats, which landed safely back on earth one day later. A second Sputnik shock is certainly not to be expected. Russia will have enough to do to protect its own population. At the moment the number of corona deaths in Russia is also increasing dramatically. The waiting for the Sputnik miracle is still going on.

Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek spoke with Professor Andrea Petö on 10 September 2020 in Vienna about “illiberal democracy” and the situation of the constitutional state in Hungary, about the situation of women between corona and right-wing populism – and about the emigration of the Central European University to Vienna.

 

The Moment of the European Commission – the Persistence of the European Parliament

European Diary, 12.11.2020: Within a week, good European news comes from Brussels and Strasbourg. After the cleverly launched news of the breakthrough in the development of a Covid-19 vaccine by the German company Biontech the tabloids worry about whether “we” (i.e. mainly us and not the others) will get enough of the vaccine. So it becomes clear what would happen to all of us if competition, power and corruption alone decided on the supply of vaccines. Meanwhile, the EU Commission has concluded treaties to ensure an even distribution of resources in Europe. And this on a large scale. One may be curious to see what kind of troublemakers will emerge in the process. But Brussels seems determined to finally get its hands on the ball.

Meanwhile, the German-Turkish community is particularly happy about the good news. Back in April, the Berlin-based Tagesspiegel newspaper ran a report on Biontech with the ironic headline: “We are vaccine”. And revealed to the astonished readership who is behind the company and its current success: the founder Uğur Şahin and the medical director Özlem Türeci, both of whom are Turkish migrant children.

Even the European Parliament is now tired of being the toothless tiger in Strasbourg. The cutbacks in European projects in the fields of education and health, with which the Council and the Commission wanted to sweeten the expenses for the large Corona “aid package” in order to calm down the stingy Austrians and their consorts, have now been at least partially reversed. The real breakthrough, however, lies in the fact that the EU can actually take on debt together now and jointly generate revenue through its own taxes. This is exactly what all national chiefs have tried to prevent so far. For this is finally a further step towards shared sovereignty. And it also means an effective commitment to common standards under the rule of law.

In the debate on procedures under the rule of law, Parliament has now reached a compromise with the Commission and the Council, which at least sends a clear signal that violations of the rule of law, such as those now commonplace in Poland and Hungary, should actually be punished in future. And this would be the case even if the misuse of EU funds were a possible consequence, and not only when this has already happened (as the half-baked German compromise had proposed in between). Consequently, this would also mean: if the legal conditions in a member state would no longer guarantee democratic control over their use. Of course, the decision would still not be taken by the parliament, but by a qualified majority in the Council of 15 states (representing 65 percent of the EU population). So it remains to be seen whether the parliament has finally found its teeth. For basically the conditions for democratic control have already been largely dismantled in view of a press that is already largely controlled by the Orban regime in Hungary and a judiciary that is already under heavy influence by the ruling parties in both Poland and Hungary. And thus there is a need for action.
Poland and Hungary, on the other hand, continue to threaten to veto the budget and the “aid package”. Money from which they themselves would of course benefit disproportionately. So things remain exciting.

Travel Warning

European Diary, 8.10.2020: Berlin warns against travel to Vienna and Vorarlberg, Munich now warns against travel to Berlin and against Berliners on trips, Vienna warns against travel to Serbia, Norway warns against Austria, Switzerland warns against travel to Vienna, Prague is on the red list, Frankfurt now too, but from Madrid you are not allowed to come to Frankfurt, although Madrid and Frankfurt are both red. And France? The west of Switzerland will soon have the same numbers, but you can’t warn about Switzerland. You were still allowed to travel to Israel from Austria when the next lockdown was already decided there. But Croatia was already a no go. The Czech Republic, on the other hand, can still be partially traveled from Austria, although the figures there are skyrocketing? Or are they just falling again? Italy is also still accessible from Austria at the moment. But can you also return from there? And the small border traffic?
The regime of travel warnings and risk regions is no longer manageable. Or to be more precise: nobody knows his way around anymore.
Where do I still get to with a quarantine test, or to visit my family, or as a commuter. And anyway, what is a commuter?

Has anyone in all these months come up with the idea that it might be possible to create more security in the EU with uniform measures to contain corona? Instead of national decathlon in disciplines that are now well known? Why do the Austrians have to abolish compulsory masks and the Italians keep them, why are the Viennese only now coming up with the idea of asking guests in pubs for contact details? The Germans have been doing that for a long time. Why should people in Vorarlberg shift their drinking home at 22.00? Would more clarity in the confusion of travel warnings be possible with more Europe-wide clarity of measures? Or is the chaos actually a clever system? According to the principle: the more confusion, the less mobility?

The Parliament Rehearses the Uprising

European Diary, 7.9.2020: The EU is facing a serious “power struggle”. The European Parliament, the only European institution with European democratic legitimacy, does not want to bow to the dictates of the heads of government. The 750 billion euro economic stimulus package to curb the consequences of the Corona pandemic, which the EU Commission negotiated in July, was under bad luck right from the start: the agreement of the Commission majority with the stingy four, then five EU states around Austria and the Netherlands was bought at the expense of massive cuts in the EU budget elsewhere.
The EU parliamentarians of many factions do not want to resign themselves to this. For example, the “EU4Health” program of all things, which is intended to protect against cross-border health risks and make affordable medicines more readily available, is to be cut from 9.4 billion to 1.7 billion euros. Joint programs for research, education, climate protection and digitization are also to be cut. And so the scope for cross-border cooperation will be restricted rather than expanded. MEPs from the Greens, the Social Democrats, the Liberals and also the conservative People’s Party from various countries are quite prepared to make use of Parliament’s right of veto. The Green MEP Rasmus Andresen brings into play the possibility of passing only the aid package, but not the budget in this form, in order to increase the pressure now in the other direction. This includes including in the budget execution more serious sanctions against those member states that violate constitutional standards. The EU parliamentarians also demand that the EU’s own revenues should finally be increased seriously, through an effective plastic tax, through digital taxes or the taxation of cross-border profits of the technology giants.
The EU Parliament and Commission still have difficult negotiations ahead of them. The need of the EU Parliament to be pushed around by the “thrifty” heads of government is ending. Even the “turquoise” MPs from Austria have not shown much enthusiasm in the past about the anti-European line of their own Austrian government. But it remains to be seen whether the words of Othmar Karas, for example, will be followed by actions.

The Gate to Hell

European Diary, 9.9.2020: Today completely without countenance and diplomacy. Naked and stunned. The Moria camp no longer exists. A major fire has destroyed the refugee camp on Lesbos, where thousands of people have been imprisoned for years as hostages of European politics. For several months 13,000 people have been living there in shelters that can accommodate only a fraction of them. Under inhuman conditions, hopelessly overcrowded, without sanitation, poorly kept alive by NGOs and the United Nations, which in return have to face insults from the criminals who rule us today. Austria pays something for the guarding of these people by the Greek police.

13.000 people, among them children, sick people, were kept there like cattle, as a deterrent against all those who possibly still believed in Europe’s “values” (be it moral, be it material).

For months NGOs have been warning that at some point Corona will break out in the camp. Largely isolated from the rest of the world, Moria was spared from Corona for a while. But a week ago there was the first serious case and numerous infections. Fear spread, of infections and even more so of the “quarantine”, because nobody is allowed to leave the camp anymore. Nevertheless, some managed to flee to the surrounding hills. The refugees are even more afraid of being shipped to newly planned, hermetic prison camps somewhere on Lesbos or Chios, and of losing the rest of their self-determination and dignity.

As a result, clashes broke out between different groups of refugees. At some point, the accumulated desperation of many months of hopelessness and torture turned into sheer panic.

The populists of Europe finally managed to explode the situation. The camp burned down. There are countless potential dangers in the shelters crammed with people. But there is talk of arson, and nobody would be surprised. If you have no other choice, the last resort is to set fire to the roof over your prison cell.

Austria’s Minister of the Interior uses the catastrophe for further agitation: “Migrants who are prepared to use violence have no right to asylum in Europe.” This makes one fear the worst. The cynicism of the last months and years is probably followed by even worse cynicism. This is the bare contempt for humanity. How can such a person still look at himself in the mirror in the morning? But perhaps the Nehammers and Kurz and how they are all called have taken down their mirrors in the meantime.

“Symbolic politics”

European Diary, 12.9.2020: The Austrian chancellor posts a video message. This has the undeniable advantage for him that he no longer has to put up with uncomfortable questions from rebellious journalists. Lying is even easier that way.
After all, more refugees cannot come here every year, he says. But in fact they have been getting fewer and fewer for years. In 2019 there were as few asylum applications as hardly ever since 2000.
Once again he reiterates his refusal to accept unaccompanied children or anyone else from the destroyed camp Moria. And in doing so he demonstrates a stubborn version of “morality”. “This inhuman system of 2015, I cannot reconcile with my conscience.” What “system” is he talking about? What conscience?
Instead, he says, “help is given on the spot, so that a decent supply is guaranteed.”
In the meantime, one had the opportunity to do this for years. And Austria has not lifted a finger. Because the conditions in Moria were supposed to serve as a deterrent, and therefore could not be inhumane enough. The demand for more humanitarian commitment on the part of Austria “on the ground” has so far interested Sebastian Kurz only in rhetoric, both as Foreign Minister and even more so as Federal Chancellor. Almost nothing has happened. Now he is calling for a “holistic approach”. What does he mean by this? He rejects “symbolic politics”, by which he obviously means the modest (shameful?) attempts by Germany, France and some other European states (including Switzerland) to free at least a few hundred children from the inferno on Lesbos.
This is the same man who looks dutifully serious at commemoration ceremonies for the victims of the Shoah when the Talmud is quoted: “Whoever saves a human life saves the whole world.”
I don’t know if that is really true either. But every child rescued from the chaos on Lesbos will at least feel that way.
Thousands of refugees are still camping out in the open. But even for Salzburg’s Governor Haslauer, the 13,000 refugees are just a collective arsonist and blackmailer who set fire to his house “so that (his) neighbor(s) will have to take him in”. And who therefore should not be helped.
This sick logic is currently widespread not only in Austria’s government, but above all in social networks. Does it still make sense to argue against it in any way? With such helpless sentences like:
Most of the people there didn’t set fire to anything at all, only a few of them did. And wasn’t it customary in Austria to rescue children from a house, even if one of the inhabitants of the house was perhaps an arsonist? But the people in Moria did not live in a “house” anyhow, but were locked into a camp against their will. And they were “kept” there under conditions that everyone knew would eventually lead to an explosion of despair. In the end, Corona came to the camp and the naked panic broke out.
How will people even talk to each other when such simple truths no longer matter? But that is exactly the point. There is no point in talking to each other here. That’s why there is a video message.

“Peace treaty”?

European Diary, 15.9.2020: Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Foreign Minister of the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and the Foreign Minister of Bahrain Dr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayan signed a so-called “peace treaty” this afternoon in Washington in the presence of Donald Trump. Masks are not worn. The White House still does not want to bother with such things like Corona.

The signing was preceded until the last hours by cabbals between the Israeli governing parties on the question of who may sign the treaty at all. Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is under indictment, needed permission from the foreign minister of the rival party Kahol Lavan.

The wording of the “peace agreement” – between three states that are not even at war with each other – remains a mystery. So far only rumors about its content have been spread. What is clear, however, is that the treaty apparently clears the way for a number of major weapons deals, including the delivery of American F-35 fighter jets to the UAE, which significantly enhance its strategic role on the Gulf.

Allegedly the treaty would also open the way to a “two-state solution”. But what the Trump administration understands by such a “two-state solution”, Israelis and Palestinians, as well as the astonished global public, already experienced last year: a patchwork of Bantustans under Israeli control. So a first class funeral. The fact that the Arab monarchs in the Gulf region do not even rhetorically care about any “peace solutions” or the interests of the Palestinians is basically not a new insight.

The annexation of large parts of the occupied West Bank, especially along the Jordan River, and with it the final and definitive rejection of any “Palestinian state”, has, of course, been postponed for the time being, and not only for the sake of better optics. This postponement is entirely in line with current Israeli interests in not shifting the so-called “status quo” too quickly in the direction of a violent “one-state solution” – without reconciliation with the Arab population and without their having equal rights. For, as is well known, there are a great many problems lurking along this path.

Even if Netanyahu has to promise this step again and again to his radical right-wing partners in order to secure their decisive election support.

Behind the new pact are not least of all common security interests, by which is meant not least the retention of power by absolutist rule in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Behind the scenes, this cooperation between Israelis, Americans, some Gulf states and also some Palestinians, such as the former “security chief” of Fatah Mohammed Dahlan, has been going on for years, and has long since become no secret.

Benjamin Netanyahu, on the other hand, sees in the absolute monarchy of the Emirates a “progressive democracy”. What conclusions this allows for his own understanding of Israel as a democracy is also no longer a secret.

One of the few real surprises is rather how much some people are blinded by this coup, with which both Netanyahu and Trump want to distract from the catastrophic consequences of their policies for their own people. Israel is now in lockdown again starting Friday. The paragon of pandemic control has become the leader into crisis. The US should also be back in lockdown by now, up to 1000 people still die every day in the richest “greatest” country in the world.

But European newspapers such as the NZZ are undauntedly celebrating the agreement between Israel and the UAE as a historic step towards “peace”. Nevertheless, the Israeli soccer club Beitar, traditionally associated with the right-wing populist parties and proud to be the only Israeli professional club that has never fielded an Arab player, is now negotiating with new investors: a group of sheikhs from the Arab Emirates. Even Jewish right-wing radicals know (as an old German pop song details): “because only the sheikh is really rich”.