Austrian government survives minister gone rogue on EU nature restoration

5 months ago 12

Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP/EPP) opted against dissolving the government after Environment Minister Leonore Gewessler (Greens) voted in favour of the EU nature restoration law despite his party’s rejection of the initiative.

On Monday (17 June), EU environment ministers adopted the controversial nature restoration law – with Austria tipping the scales. The ÖVP says Gewessler – a minister for their green coalition partner – had not been empowered to vote in favour, which she did anyway.

“A minister of the Republic has broken the law,” Nehammer told reporters in Brussels on Monday night, based on a legal analysis of the government’s constitutional service. However, he refused to take the more severe course: asking the President to fire Gewessler and call for snap elections.

“The emotions would be there” to call it quits, he added, but Necitedto cite his responsibility to the Austrian people to keep things orderly until the elections in late September.

Instead, the conservatives opted to file criminal charges against Gewessler – potentially carrying a jail sentence of up to ten years for abuse of position – and are seeking annulment of the restoration law before the EU court in Luxembourg.

Election campaigns are already in full swing. “The green coalition partner has shown its true colours,” Nehammer stressed.

The criminal case will first be decided upon by public prosecutors before being fought in court, while the EU suit is given mixed chances.

One expert in EU law says a suit has a reasonable chance of success given the ÖVP’s efforts to signal Gewessler’s lack of competence, while others, including the chairing Belgium minister Alain Maron, are more sceptical.

Meanwhile, the Austrian Greens have opted for calm.

“We have backed up all steps with legal opinions,” Werner Kogler, the green Vice-Chancellor, said.

(Nikolaus J. Kurmayer | Euractiv.de, edited by Alice Taylor)