The then FPÖ boss Heinz-Christian Strache spoke in the Ibiza video of donations that could be smuggled past the audit office. The public prosecutor’s office for business and corruption then took action and identified four such FPÖ-related associations: “Austria in Motion”, “Patria Austria”, “Institute for Security Policy” and “Economy for Austria”, reports the news magazine “Profil” in its new edition. The investigations were stopped in September, they were directed against Heinz-Christian Strache and the former club boss Johann Gudenus. FPÖ general secretary until 2018, i.e. at the time when these clubs were active, was the newly crowned FPÖ party chairman Herbert Kickl, according to a report in the Ö1 morning journal on Tuesday.
However, the Causa clubs was not completely off the table. After joint research by profil and “Der Standard”, investigations are still ongoing, the WKStA still lists Markus Tschank and three other club officials at the time as accused. It should be about infidelity in connection with the use of donations in three of the clubs.
Investigations against Kurz and Blümel
According to profile and standard research, the association “Austria in Motion” is said to have collected around 383,000 euros between 2015 and 2018. The relevant documents are also available to the U Committee. According to the investigators, payments worth 17,500 euros are worth clarifying. 12,000 euros of this are said to have ended up with Taschank and another club official. Tschank emphasizes that this is always based on proper resolutions and corresponding contracts. An account opening is said to have been refused by the competent court.
Investigations are also underway against the highest ÖVP politicians, starting with Chancellor Sebastian Kurz on suspicion of false testimony and with the Finance Minister on suspicion of bribery. Gernot Blümel will have to answer questions on Thursday for the third time in the U Committee. The President of the National Council, Wolfgang Sobotka, has been invited for the second time. On Wednesday, the chancellor confidante and ÖVP minister Elisabeth Köstinger is invited as well as ex-ÖVP justice minister Josef Moser.
Do chats also put pressure on Kickl? “Don’t assume”
Herbert Kickl on the investigation: “The club system can only be called FPÖ-related to a very limited extent.” Association members are members of several parties. He had learned from the media that there was an investigation, but also that there was a statement by a former FPÖ MP who firmly rejects the allegations. The same presumption of innocence has to apply here as other parties claim for themselves. For the FPÖ this week in the Ibiza Committee of Inquiry is interesting with the “who’s who of the dishonorable turquoise-black family”.
It has been seen in recent weeks that “the committee is something like an excavation of the deep state of the ÖVP in this country. And what is being exhumed is black Sodom and turquoise Gomorrah.” He thinks it is a shame that the Greens are breaking the wall for the ÖVP and preventing further clarification by turning off.
Much, like Thomas Schmid’s chats, took place with blue government participation, said the moderator, and whether Kickl, as party leader, could rule out chats that could also bring pressure to the Freedom Party? Kickl: “I’m not assuming that anything will appear here, otherwise they would have already been reported.”
He rather thinks that things could get even tighter for the ÖVP in a successor sub-committee on Wirecard, which is anything but a German political and financial scandal: “There are very, very many traces leading from Germany to Austria, interestingly enough most of them go to the Federal Chancellery. And when the ÖVP hears the word Wirecard, it’s sweat on its forehead. ”
