1. MONITORING OF THE POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT AFTER THE ELECTION OF THE NEW CABINET AND IN VIEW OF THE LEGISLATIVE ELECTION IN SEPTEMBER 2013
The new Austrian government, whose first official meeting took place on the 9th of April 2013, is currently lead by the Prime Minister Kärtner. The PM, who is part of the ÖVP (Österreichiche Volkspartei) has made a political alliance with the Sozialdemokratishe Partei Österreichs (SPÖ) and the Grünen (green alternative). It will be interesting to monitor the activity of this new alliance that sees cooperating together conservatives, socio-democrats and green activists, since their apparent priorities' scales seem to be extremely different. It will also be important to watch closely the operate of this alliance in lead up to the legislative elections that are set for September 2013.
2. AUSTRIA'S ECONOMIC SITUATION IN THE EUROZONE CRISIS
Another important current issue that Austria seems to be concerned with appears to be the role of the Austrian economy and the impacts that the Eurozone crisis is having on the national financial situation. Even though the projections on the economic growth for the country have not be dramatically failed, still a sign of economic slow down is being identified in the country, currently under performing of 1.4% according to the trimestral monitoring of 2013. This shows that, even though Austria's economy is still performing better in comparison to other EU members, the unpredictable trends that the Eurozone crisis has been presenting might prevent Austria from expanding in terms of financial growth and slow down this process to the point of stagnation.
3. POVERTY LINE
The latest data published by the European Commission for Social Issues has identified that the number of Austrians that are considered to live a life of material deprivation and that are therefore statistically described as poor has added up to just over 1 million citizens. Despite the number having decrease in comparison to the data pubblished in 2008, the minister of the Social Welfare has declared that the measures that have proved efficient in reducing the amount of citizens under the poverty line will need to be enforced and protracted so to keep reducing this margin. The minister aims to reduce this number of 235.000 by 2018.
4. AUSTRIAN TELEKOM CASE
One of the hottest topic in Austria is represented by the case of the Telekom corruption- scandal: since 2006 the half- publicly owned telephone and communication company has been illegally financing a conservative and populist political party, the BZÖ (Bündnis Zufunkft Österreich). The lobbyist monetary scheme, for which the ex CEO of Telekom Austria Rudolf Fischer and the BZÖ- politician Klaus Wittauer and others have been held accountable, has ended up in court and the involved personalities have been sentenced to repay the current management of Telekom Austria the total sum of 960,000 euros between court administration taxes and actual compensations to the company. It remains to be seen if the scandal is going to involve more political personalities or more parties or if the interested parties will keep it in court to reduce some of the due fines and compensations.
5. VIENNA'S AIRPORT: NO TO QUANTAS AND EMIRATES
This is perhaps more tourism and aviation related but it might still have an economic impact that might need to be monitored given that Austria's main airport is still publicly run. Vienna's airport has recently been having issues with Emirates because the airport autority has decided not to allowa the new, bigger A380, also know as Jumbo Jets, to operate within their facilities and has also refused to increase the number of weekly connections between Vienna and Dubai. This, together with the refusal of Vienna to operate a marketing alliance with one of Emirates' newest partner Quantas, has pushed the airline to appeal to the ministry of infrastructure to try and solve the quarrel.
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