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A year ago, the Ibiza affair shook Austria and led to the breakdown of the coalition of ÖVP and FPÖ. Now a committee of inquiry is to clarify whether the government was for sale.
By Andrea Beer, ARD Studio Vienna
At the end of May 2019 the music group "Venga Boys" will play their age-old hit "We're going to Ibiza" on the Ballhausplatz in Vienna. Thousands of opponents of the turquoise-blue government cheer them enthusiastically: they can hardly believe their luck, because the "Ibiza" video is the beginning of the end of the Chancellor Sebastian Kurz's ÖVP-FPÖ coalition.
Now, a year later, the parliamentary committee of inquiry begins in Vienna's Hofburg, which is supposed to deal with the multifaceted Ibiza affair politically - one of the greatest political scandals in post-war Austria.
At the request of the opposition Social Democrats and the liberal NEOS, a presumed buyability of the then ÖVP-FPÖ federal government is examined. SPÖ boss Pamela Rendi Wagner puts it this way: "We want to know whether the black and blue federal government was available for sale at the time, whether the announcements in Heinz-Christian Strache's Ibiza video were followed by actions under black and blue."
Were there well-endowed company posts or funds for compliant laws? How did the donation practice go to the parties through party-related clubs or companies and wealthy private individuals?
The reason for these questions is the video, which was secretly recorded in a villa in Ibiza in summer 2017. To see: The then FPÖ leader Strache and his confidant Johann Gudenus. You are talking to a supposed Russian oligarch niece. The then opposition politician Strache holds out the prospect of government contracts should his right-wing FPÖ come to the government. In the video, Strache brags about party donations to the Court of Auditors.
Deny all of the companies and individuals named by Strache. The members of the committee of inquiry also have sufficient approaches that they can pursue.
An example: the so-called casinos affair: an FPÖ politician became the CFO of the part-state casinos Austria. He has since been recalled and the prosecutor is examining whether there were any political favors. For example, licenses for the gaming company Novomatic, which is intertwined with Casinos Austria and denies everything.
ÖVP National Council President Wolfgang Sobotka heads the Ibiza committee of inquiry. He emphasized: "It is about political responsibility, the committee of inquiry is not a court."
The trial judge Ilse Huber looks at the committee, among other things, on the boundary between the obligation to provide information and the right of witnesses to remain silent. No one has to strain himself, said Huber. Various investigations are currently underway against Strache. Ilse Huber sees a difficulty in "that this Ibiza video has led to huge debates and huge consequences and it is somehow foreseeable that these debates will continue in the committee of inquiry".
There were many disputes in advance. The current turquoise-green government tried to limit the committee to fewer topics. And also the start is accompanied by a dispute. The Federal Criminal Police Office found a copy of the Ibiza video at the end of April, but the investigative committee was not yet able to see it.
