Report of the procurement commission for months under closure

“It is an unprecedented process and draws a dark picture of transparency in the Ministry of Defense that a report by the procurement test commission has still not been sent to the parliament for months while he has already been approved to the press,” criticizes the military spokesman for the Greens, David Stögmüller, the dealings with the test report. The annual report 2024 of the procurement committee was completed in early 2025, but has not yet been published or presented to the National Council. Nevertheless, the daily newspaper “Die Presse” is already available. This procedure is seriously questioning the credibility of the ministry in terms of transparency.

According to Stögmüller, the content of the report also reveals considerable grievances. In the case of military procurement projects – such as the new battle boots – the tender criteria were apparently tailored to the fact that only one certain provider could in fact come into play. “This practice shows a structural problem in the procurement processes that we Greens have already shown in the case of the new procurement of the Italian jet trainer Leonardo,” says Stögmüller. According to the documents available to us, the internal revision of the ministry has already criticized that a tender was carried out with criteria that could only be met by a single model. “To this day, nobody has been able to answer why Austria needs a jet trainer with the criterion of air refueling, although we do not have this ability in Austria,” says the Greens’ green spokesman.

“It is becoming more and more obvious that decisions in the defense department are not primarily made according to the objective needs, but according to the personal preferences of individual decision -makers,” criticizes Stögmüller and states: “Such processes are neither effective nor economically and undermine the trust in public procurement. After the discretion of individuals, is procured, ”says Stögmüller.