“Every citizen, regardless of whether they live in a large or small community, must have the same right to information and transparency!”
Vienna (OTS) – “The ÖVP and the Greens have no real interest in more transparency and more information for citizens, otherwise 40 percent of Austrians would not have excluded themselves from it! As mayor of a municipality with around 1,500 inhabitants, I would have wished that all citizens had the same rights,” said FPÖ National Council member and Afritzer mayor Maximilian Linder, criticizing the Freedom of Information Act passed on Wednesday by the ÖVP, Greens and SPÖ, from which municipalities under 5,000 residents are excluded. “Why do the ÖVP, Greens and SPÖ defame 40 percent of Austrians as second-class citizens? Every citizen, regardless of whether they live in a large or small community, must have the same right to information and transparency! “In addition, the new law fuels even more mistrust that these smaller municipalities do not work transparently, as they can withhold information from citizens due to the unnecessary information requirement,” says Linder.
Linder was convinced that there was no need for transparency or the right to information in communities with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants and that, with the exception of these ‘smaller’ communities, they wanted to save work, the black-green federal government and the social democrats were wrong in their thinking, Linder was convinced. In addition, in his view, the government would be doing the small communities a disservice with this differentiation: “In every community there are particularly interested citizens, which is also good and important. Despite this exception, they will direct their inquiries to the communities. These individual requests often cause more effort than if a general information requirement were to apply to all municipalities. Because every individual request is answered – regardless of whether the smaller communities are exempt from this law. By disclosing information that is not absolutely necessary, citizens believe that something is being kept secret from them. So that’s all that’s left of the exemption for all communities with less than 5,000 inhabitants.”
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