“There will be no more secret side letters,” he said on Wednesday. This should apply to all future government coalitions with ÖVP participation, regardless of who the partner is.
He stands by the agreements on filling posts, which is also the task of a government if there is a right to propose, said the Chancellor. But: “It has to be made public and transparent. With me there will be no secret agreements outside of the government program in future governments.”
All working methods that are necessary for staffing and that exist within the framework of the legal mandate will be transparently agreed in the government program. “This applies to all future government coalitions, regardless of which partner they have,” he emphasized. Nehammer wants to prevent what he calls the “mystification” of the pact. “It must be clear to everyone that secret agreements damage trust in politics,” he emphasized.
Despite all the good intentions, the opposition continued to criticize the coalition. “We have a government in which there are actually cracks in every nook and cranny,” said deputy SPÖ club boss Jörg Leichtfried at a press conference. The Greens in particular have already lost a lot of credibility as a “self-proclaimed cleanliness party”. There is a lot to do, said Leichtfried with regard to pandemic management and called for transparent meetings of the Gecko crisis team and an end to the “test chaos”.
According to his own statement, Leichtfried could not really answer whether there were also such side letters in coalition formations in the SPÖ. At least he was not involved in such processes, he asserted. At least this much: “I assume that there were also political agreements in previous elections.”
Source: Nachrichten
