Friday 29 October 2021
Ex-Chancellor “can absolutely go back”
Schallenberg expects Kurz to return
When Austria’s ex-Chancellor Kurz resigned on allegations of corruption, Schallenberg was there to replace him as head of government. The new Chancellor firmly believes in Kurz’s innocence – and that he will return.
Austria’s new Federal Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg sees his predecessor in office wrongly accused by the Vienna Public Prosecutor’s Office for Corruption. In an interview with the “Spiegel”, Schallenberg said that he was convinced “that there will be nothing left under criminal law that concerns Sebastian Kurz”.
The head of government, sworn in on October 9, expects his predecessor to return: “Kurz can absolutely go back to politics.” For Schallenberg, Kurz is “someone who has taken on the enormous responsibility, even as foreign minister”. Nevertheless, he was surprised by the accusations made by the public prosecutor against Kurz. However, “not every allegation leads to an indictment, not every lawsuit to a conviction”.
Speculations that he himself had only been appointed as governor, Schallenberg rejected in the newspaper: he would remain chancellor until 2024 because he had “taken over the office for the duration of this legislative period”. Premature new elections are unlikely, even if the coalition partner, the Greens, “have some nerves on the edge” and “something is broken” in the relationship between the government partners.
“Your excitement is not necessary”
Despite the corruption allegations against Kurz and the Ibiza scandal, Schallenberg does not consider Austrian politics to be prone to scandals, according to “Spiegel”. “Our democracy is solidified, the institutions are functioning,” he emphasized, adding: “You don’t need to be excited.”
At the beginning of October, chat and short messages from Sebastian Kurz and his environment became public, in which the ex-chancellor and other accused communicated, according to the public prosecutor’s office, about well-done surveys and their publication in the Austrian media.
Briefly, aiding and abetting bribery and infidelity are accused, he denies the allegations. Schallenberg told the “Spiegel”: “Each of us has already written text messages that are rude in tone, especially in politically heated times – even if the picture that is now being drawn is of course not a good one.”