Vienna (OTS) – The Vienna Greens are addressing the city of Vienna’s deficits in democracy and control today in a special state parliament requested by the Greens and the ÖVP on the topic: “More democracy, control and transparency at all levels in the state of Vienna.” “In recent years, deficits in connection with “The handling of opposition rights has become increasingly entrenched, despite the participation in government of the Neos, who are committed to transparency and democracy,” said the club chairman of the Vienna Green Party, David Ellensohn.
“The allotment garden affair, in which the Donaustadt district leader Nevrivy is involved, remains unresolved. Although the mayor announced an audit by the internal audit department, no results are known yet. There were also no political consequences for the district leader. The announced code of conduct for Viennese MPs is also not on the table yet,” said Ellensohn: “Friendly economics is apparently still the most important thing to the SPÖ.”
The City of Vienna is also in default when it comes to freedom of information, which will replace official secrecy in September 2025 and for which the first implementation measures would have long been necessary. The so-called “Vienna Public Corporate Governance Code” is also stuck in the announcement stage: This should have made the management and control of Vienna’s investments, including the appointment of supervisory board members, transparent through generally applicable rules. “In Vienna we see incompatibilities everywhere. The best protection against cronyism and corruption is transparency. “That is why political control rights must be expanded and not restricted, as was the case with the changes to the right to ask questions decided by the SPÖ and NEOS in November 2023,” said Ellensohn.
But it is not only in the right to interpellation that there are serious undesirable developments; the number of initiative applications – i.e. legal resolutions without internal and external reviews – is also far too high. “Initiated applications must be the exception and not the rule; it represents a deficit in democratic policy if experts and NGOs who have to implement a new law are not allowed to submit their suggestions for improvement,” said Ellensohn.
In addition to a reform of the rules of procedure, the Greens and the ÖVP are also calling for a new reform of the investigative commissions and investigative committees as a lesson from the Wien Energie scandal. In particular, the auditing powers of these control bodies must be expanded, the document submission must be compulsorily enforceable and the emergency competence regulation of the Vienna city constitution must be specified.
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