The Chancellor says he will take the restoration decree to the EU court. According to Belgium, the EU presidency, the voting result is binding.
Sara Hussein,
Vilma Romsi
The Austrian government drifted into a crisis on Monday when the Minister of the Environment Leonore Gewessler voted in favor of the EU restoration regulation against the government’s line. The news agency Reuters and the newspaper report on the matter, among others Kronen Zeitung.
Gewessler’s change of direction caused an open conflict between the Christian Democratic Prime Minister’s Party, the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the government partner the Greens.
Chancellor Karl Nehammer and the ÖVP immediately announced that they would sue Gewessler, a member of the Greens, for abuse of power.
According to Nehammer, Gewessler did not have the right to vote in favor of the regulation. According to Nehammer, by law he should have received approval from the Austrian Ministry of Agriculture, which is partially responsible for issues related to the regulation.
According to Nehammer, the ÖVP intends to demand the EU court to overturn Monday’s decision. The regulation narrowly passed with the help of Austria’s vote.
– We have all witnessed how the minister of the Republic breaks the law. He has violated the constitution. We intend to punish it according to the act, says Nehammer.
Gewessler: The law is on my side
Gewessler thinks the law is on his side. This is also the opinion of the chairman of the Greens and the vice-chancellor Werner Koglerwhich has given its support to the regulation.
It is so far unclear what kind of response Nehammer’s complaint will receive in the EU court.
The EU presidency, Belgium, has already stated that Gewessler’s vote is binding, and that the law has been officially approved.
Nehammer says that despite the crisis, he does not intend to dissolve the Austrian parliament. Parliamentary elections will be held in the country on September 29, and according to Nehammer, he does not want to drive Austria into chaos with early elections.
The ÖVP and the Greens have been at odds in the past, for example on immigration issues.