At a conference at Burg Schlaining in southern Burgenland today, the finance officers of the federal states exchanged views on the negotiations on financial equalization with the federal government. Unsurprisingly, it is about the demand for more financial resources to fulfill the statutory tasks, as Governor Hans Peter Doskozil (SPÖ), currently chairman of the Governors’ Conference, explained. The focus is on health, care, education and climate.
According to Doskozil, the federal states are also calling for the future criteria of the Austrian Stability Pact to be clarified quickly. According to the governor, the financing of additional measures in the interests of people, the economy and the climate must be possible without the threat of sanctions. Other topics are the outstanding payments from the federal government for the Covid-19 measures pre-financed by the federal states and the further development of the universities of applied sciences.
Vienna wants money for subway expansion
Another demand came from Vienna today: Finance City Councilor Peter Hanke (SPÖ) wants to talk to the federal government about financing the subway expansion, where there is a 50:50 split in the costs. It was not until November that the National Council confirmed this for the fourth and fifth expansion stages, with total costs of 5.741 billion euros. But the problem now is inflation.
The construction cost index in civil engineering has risen by 20 percent within a year, Hanke explained to the “Standard”. “Even under Finance Minister Gernot Blümel, we built in an additional component: If inflation is higher than two and a half percent over three years, this has to lead to negotiations. We’ll take care of that after the financial equalization negotiations,” said the city council.
