EU hits low point in Austria

Date: 18/04/1996

By Thomas Klau

WITH the European Commission attacking practices ranging from centuries-old banking laws to new ecologically-motivated road levies, Austrian love for the Union is currently hitting an all-time low.

The Commission is engaged in three formal procedures against Vienna, calling for the abolition of Austria's popular anonymous savings accounts, the withdrawal of a toll increase aimed at reducing road freight through the Alps, and a change in its public procurement practices.

But Austrian Chancellor Franz Vranitzky's coalition government is coming under massive popular pressure to resist the onslaught from Brussels in two of the issues at the centre of controversy.

Austrians have been allowed to have anonymous savings accounts for the last 200 years, and now perceive the authorities' acceptance of hidden cash as a basic civil liberty. This has prompted Vranitzky to declare that such accounts are “part of Austria's savings culture” and to insist that the Commission's complaints “do not hold water”.

Equally strong cries of outrage have been prompted by the Commission's call for the Vienna government to repeal a drastic increase in the tolls levied on the Brenner motorway.

The toll increase enjoys strong support throughout the country, with grassroots activists in the province of Tyrol leading the way in voicing local anger over the growing number of foreign lorries rumbling through the Alps.

Neighbouring Switzerland's fierce determination to enforce a shift of all freight transit from road to rail has heightened Austrian fears. Experts predict that the explosion of cross-border freight activity which has already occurred and is expected to increase in the single market will, in combination with the Swiss policy, lead to ecological disaster in Austria if no countermeasures are taken.

But while Commission sources say they understand these concerns, they point to existing EU transport laws which ban stiff toll increases unless they are designed to finance infrastructure investment.

Suggestions that Austria should pin its hopes on a change in the antiquated EU legislation are being met with a weary smile in Vienna, where officials point to the unanimity requirement for decisions on such issues in the Council of Ministers.

Austria believes that the powerful freight lobby in the Netherlands would make the Dutch government block any attempt to change Union legislation.

While the anger about the threatened ban on anonymous savings accounts is being fuelled by less high-minded concerns, it mobilises similar levels of popular resentment.

But the Commission's power to take Vienna to the European Court of Justice over such issues - already exerted in the public procurement dispute - has alerted Austrians to the fact that EU membership means they are no longer governed from Vienna alone. Ordinary citizens have responded with indignation to the growing realisation that they will have to swallow bitter medicine dispensed by institutions in Brussels, and that the Dutch now have the power to shoot down conservation measures in the Alps single-handedly.

The resentment this has triggered is compounded by the strong feeling that Union membership has failed to deliver the goods promised by politicians ahead of the1994 referendum on membership.

The generally-expected lowering of food prices - which are up to 20&percent; higher in Austria than in neighbouring Germany - has not fed through to consumers so far, with the benefits lining the pockets of Austria's cost-intensive and antiquated retail sector instead.

A further nail was driven into the coffin of Austrian EU affection when the grand coalition government which re-emerged from the country's general election in December revealed drastic cost-cutting and tax-boosting plans designed to secure Austria's place in the first group of countries qualifying for EMU. Many Austrians accept that pain is inevitable in order to rein in the country's recently spiralling budget deficit. But this awareness is not made any easier by the fact that part of that deficit is due to Austria's net contribution to EU coffers, which the most conservative estimates put at around two billion ecu.

Consequently, a recent poll showing that 58&percent; of Austrians would decide against Union membership if they were to vote today is hardly surprising. But EU supporters in Vienna will take comfort from the fact that only 40&percent; come out as full-blown Eurosceptics, considering the EU to be altogether “a bad thing”.