Trade union president Wolfgang Katzian (SPÖ) said on Sunday in ORF’s “Pressestunde” about the savings decided in the two-year budget that “it breaks my heart when the lower income groups are particularly heavily burdened.” But it is a compromise of three parties, he added, and in total it is “balanced.” Should the measures set out in the two-year budget prove insufficient, “we will have to talk again,” he said, bringing wealth taxes into play.

Katzian lamented that, with regard to the previous government, “we only learned of the true extent of the budget deficit very late.” He was also disturbed that “in recent years many measures were introduced without counter-financing” – and that economic development had not been as it should have been.

Criticism and Counterarguments
On the austerity package in the two-year budget, the SPÖ politician said: “Of course there are things in it I don’t like and would personally do differently. But at the end of the day you need a parliamentary majority for every measure.” “I think that even with the revenue-side measures taken, one can already say it is a balanced story.”

The ÖGB leader stressed: “Of course, as a Social Democrat it breaks my heart. The alternative would have been to sit back and say ‘that can’t be.’ The other option was ‘I try to take responsibility and find compromises’ – that’s what the SPÖ did. But yes, it really breaks my heart when the lower income groups are especially burdened.”

At the same time he pointed to gains achieved, such as the bank levy, the special tax on energy companies, anti-fraud measures, and the extension of the top tax rate. He also emphasized that many items that were on the agenda, “for example the rapid increase of the retirement age,” had been prevented.

Wealth Taxes on the Agenda
Inheritance and wealth taxes are not in the coalition agreement nor in the two-year budget, Katzian reminded. “But we have an economic development that is not – or not yet – as we would like. Therefore we must assume that the measures now put in place may not suffice. And we will have to discuss again, in that case: Who bears the burden and what is the contribution of the broad shoulders?”

He said the debate would return to the participation of large fortunes “well over one million euros” – and the inheritance tax that exists in many European countries. It concerns wealth over one million euros, not one’s own home. That “would not hit the masses or granny’s little house,” he stressed. The question will be, “after this two-year budget, how big is the need. Then one must discuss what can come, what is not in the coalition agreement.”

“Because with the things in the coalition agreement one will probably find it very hard to finance another big wave alone,” concluded Katzian. “When one discusses what possibilities there are, the cards will be reshuffled. For us as a trade union it is completely clear that the large fortunes must contribute.”