"Krone" commentary

Tyrolean politicians as featherweights

(Bild: stock.adobe.com, Krone KREATIV)

After the tough and, above all, long government negotiations, Claus Meinert, editor-in-chief of the "Tiroler Krone", takes a look at the number of people involved in the talks. He doesn't leave Tyrol out of the equation either. 

Our big neighbor Germany is currently trying to forge a new government. Due to a lack of alternatives, the CDU/CSU (in first place in the elections) and the big loser party, the SPD, have to "get their act together". This will not take 151 days, as happened in Austria. Easter is the target. That would be a third of our time.

It is interesting to see how our neighbors - more than nine times the size of Austria in terms of population - are tackling this. According to the German media, with fewer people, i.e. 256 politicians in 16 working groups. In Germany, there was talk of more than 300 "negotiators". In some cases, there were allegedly 40 to 50 people in subgroups. Anyone who has been in such a situation and tried to discuss something with so many people and, above all, to achieve a result, knows what comes out of it. In view of the "large number" of negotiators in Germany, it is said that it is increasingly a matter of "coloring in graph paper", but that a radical plan for restructuring the state is needed quickly. And in our country? Well, the graph paper has probably been colored in several times.

It is also astonishing that the ÖVP, SPÖ and Neos Tirol played a rather subordinate role in this impressive "number of participants" in the negotiations. Saving travel costs was hardly the reason. Rather, it is a sign of how much weight Tyrol carries from the perspective of the East.