“At lunch, Thomas Schmid told me that the Ministry of Finance wanted to cut the Wifo basic subsidy by a million, or a quarter,” said Badelt to the Profile”.
“I was completely surprised and really angry. I was only a Wifo boss for a short time and thought to myself, I am definitely not the one who bears Wifo financially, and threatened to resign,” said the economics professor. Schmid, then General Secretary in the Ministry of Finance said that there was general dissatisfaction with the Wifo in the Ministry of Finance and that it should generally be curtailed.
“I had the impression that it was not about pushing through a certain political line, but simply showing who is in power,” said so Badelt Further. The cut in Wifo funds ultimately fizzled out, also because the turquoise project became public. “That was the time of the election campaign, and I suspected that they didn’t want the topic publicly,” and: “I think they were really worried that I would resign.”
Badelt is referred to in the chats as “turning neck”. In terms of content, however, he was not talked into it, stressed Badelt In profile”. This means that both of Austria’s major economic research institutes appear in the chats of the turquoise circle around ex-Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (VP). Schmied wrote about the head of the Institute for Higher Studies at the time: “I can still get cookers on line. IHS financed by BMF”. Martin Kocher joined the VP government team as Minister of Labor in 2021.
Also this year there was a turmoil in September about the financing of Wifo and IHS. In the room there was a shortening of the basic financing by the National Bank (OeNB). The designated IHS boss Lars Feld had therefore requested that the financing of the institute be clarified before he signs his contract. Feld should have started his new post on October 1, 2021. Most recently, however, he was confident that the agreement would be concluded by November.
