Hatred of the Greens? “Didn’t shock me” (2024)

"Krone": Mr. Kogler, your commentary on the case with "farting and mumbling" really got the reporting going.How much responsibility for the huge response do you take?
Werner Kogler: I have taken back these two words because they are inelegant, inappropriate and ultimately also unintelligent. The accusations that were clearly on the table were immediately refuted. However, it is legitimate to defend yourself when allegations are made in private chats. What is really at stake are important EU issues: should climate protection be turned off or expanded? Weakening or strengthening democracy?

The fact is that the allegations made by Mr. and Mrs. Bohrn Mena had been known for weeks. Why was no crisis strategy developed by the Greens?
These were conversations between Lena Schilling and her closest former circle of friends. From Lena's point of view, this was never something that should have been made public, which is why there was a settlement. If the couple in question reached a settlement and then toured the editorial offices with the settlement - then that is at least strange. Incidentally, this method is completely new in this dimension, according to the Press Council, and even the media are talking about breaking taboos. And where a formulation in defense of a campaigner for climate protection went wrong, we apologized.

The next faux pas happened at the second press conference and there was talk of Silberstein methods: So things went suboptimal on several occasions ...
Olga Voglauer has - as you say - apologized. In any case, it was stated that the red-affine Bohrn-Menas and other people from the left-wing circle with close ties to the Social Democrats and the Communist Party had passed on individual pieces of private news to the media, thus creating a completely distorted picture. This is not even disputed.

During election campaigns, the Greens put up posters saying "What does decency vote for?". Did Lena Schilling act decently?
First of all, I see that Lena Schilling was talking to close friends. The new situation here is that keyhole methods were used to dig around in chats. That's the remarkable thing here. I ask myself: how is this supposed to develop? And the question of decency in the election campaign after Ibiza referred to the fact that Austria must move away from corruption. That the judiciary is not dying a quiet death, but must be saved in terms of budget and personnel. That proceedings should be conducted independently, regardless of person or organization. And that has been achieved - that is political decency.

Didn't it shock you when Schilling wrote in the chat: "I've never hated anyone as much as I've hated the Greens all my life."?
No, it didn't. And for two reasons. She writes in the past tense. It is also clear that she is a young climate campaigner who is struggling with whether she should switch from activism to politics. I also experienced this in a personal conversation with her. I can understand that 1:1. And we have agreed that the common fight for climate protection is paramount and that we don't have to agree on every position. That's a good thing, because we want to give this movement and this young woman a place. We should respect this development by Lena Schilling and not constantly bash her. A person's private life is being dragged into the public eye like never before. Election campaigns should be a competition of the best ideas, and for me the central question is how we can make life better for everyone living in Europe. Democracy is under massive threat because Putin has been waging a disinformation war within Europe against Europe since 2016. If we don't get our act together soon, we will ask ourselves at some point, when did we lose the match for our way of life? Instead, we will be preoccupied with keyhole chats. That doesn't address the questions that will decide the future.

During his state visit to Germany, French President Emmanuel Macron found dramatic words for the development. He said that the Union "could die if we don't make the right decisions". You obviously take a similar view ...
The situation is dramatic, because nothing can be taken for granted. Liberal democracy and the rule of law are under attack from outside and from within. I think it is irresponsible to attack European integration in this way. The perpetrators are the right-wing extremists and right-wing populists, who are helping to carry out Putin's work of shame. In Austria, this is the Kickl-FPÖ. But those who want to wink and nod their way into this whole right-wing populist fuss must also be held accountable. Because the European Union must be properly understood. With 27 member states, it can only work with compromises. In addition, you also have to take into account the different political currents. That is already difficult in your own country. That is why we must not denounce every compromise at EU level.

Let's move on to domestic policy. Dispute over the renaturation law and the national climate plan. In the final phase of the coalition, nothing is moving forward on environmental issues. What's more, the sparks are flying. Why didn't the Greens actually want an early election date to end this agony?
In the past four years of Green government participation, more progress has been made on climate protection than in the 30 years before. We have accelerated from the slow lane to the fast lane. We will be one of the first countries in the EU to win the storm using only renewable energies - thanks to the consistent work of Leonore Gewessler. Greenhouse gas emissions are falling faster than we even expected - and, and, and... All this was possible with the ÖVP. It is logical that there is always friction. There are still many fossil fuel lobbyists who want to regain their influence. We are working to ensure that climate protection and economic development go hand in hand.

And specifically on renaturation. How do the Greens intend to push through their convictions?
Renaturation is a major and central project of the Union to ensure nature conservation so that nature has more space again. We are already doing this to some extent in Austria, which is why I don't understand the resistance. The federal states have blocked everything - and these are black and red state governors. I welcome the fact that Mayor Michael Ludwig and Governor Peter Kaiser are now rethinking things. But until a few weeks ago, they were acting in concert with the ÖVP provincial governors. If Ludwig, Kaiser and Doskozil had not agreed to the unified provincial position in the first place, the problem would not have arisen. Now there is a legal problem because Vienna and Carinthia have to clarify how the old resolutions disappear and are no longer legally binding. If the red state governors have already sinned before, then confession, penance and correction are now called for.

Let's assume that this legal problem is solved by Vienna and Carinthia. Should Environment Minister Leonore Gewessler then vote in favor of the law in Brussels against the wishes of Agriculture Minister Totschnig and Finance Minister Brunner?
It was often the case that individual ministers voted differently than their departmental colleagues would have wanted, and that applied just as much. If agricultural issues are negotiated in such a way that nature is left behind, then the reverse will probably also be true.

So in a nutshell: Yes, Leonore Gewessler should vote for the renaturation law in Brussels ...
Yes, of course. This directive is a kind of life insurance for nature and soil protection and the uniform position of the federal states must now be removed for this protection.

Let's finish with FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl, you've been railing against him for over a year now. You compare him to Viktor Orbán. But even scandals such as the espionage affair surrounding Egisto Ott, where there are clear traces in the FPÖ, bounce off him. Doesn't that frustrate you?
No. If anything, it encourages me to engage in this debate. I was certainly one of the first to start criticizing his Orban role model. But - and this is positive - well over 50 percent are not infected by it. All the talk of a people's chancellor and systemic parties is nonsense and, like much else, Nazi jargon. It is a problem that many people can no longer relate to these expressions and fewer and fewer people are upset. Incidentally, Kickl himself is the system. As the SPÖ parliamentary group chairman Kucher has shown, he is simply clearing much more money than he should be earning from his post. How this comes about needs to be explained. The biggest scandal is that he avoids being summoned to appear before the parliamentary sub-committee and instead laughs off the mountain somewhere. This is a mockery of the people's representatives and thus of the people by an alleged chancellor of the people.

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