Briefly on the ORF Summer Talk: “Returning to Normal for the Foreseeable Future”

Monday night was the last time for 2020: Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz closed the ORF summer series of talks.
Just three days after his keynote address, the hour-long television talk gave the head of government another chance to hit the political stakes for the fall, and there is definitely a need to do so, especially with regard to the Covid crisis- 19. Because health policy measures such as the “traffic light” that will be applied from Friday have recently caused irritation and negative excitement. Thus, much of the conversation revolved around Corona and overcoming the crisis.

Kurz indicated that there could be an adjustment again in the near future. “The federal government will do an evaluation for the fall this week.” At the same time, he reiterated the hope that “things will return to normal in the foreseeable future.” And he defended his Minister of Health, Rudolf Anschober, who with his ministry “always makes honest efforts” to enact high-quality laws and ordinances in accordance with the constitution.
In response to criticism that he, Kurz, had markedly changed his rhetoric in the course of the crisis and possibly even consciously frightened people, the Chancellor replied that he always stuck to the same message at one point, namely: “Just when there is a If there is an effective drug or vaccine, the crisis is over. “
The head of the ÖVP justified his now audible optimism with the fact that all discussions with national and international experts had led to one result: “Research on a vaccine and a drug is going better than expected, a breakthrough is expected for the next summer”.

The big challenge for the chancellor in the coming weeks is essentially to communicate a great narrative, which is: ‘I’m the boss, I have a plan, and I have everything under control,’ ”says Wolfgang Bachmayer, head of the GMO Institute.
The head of government tried again and again to do justice to this by giving wishes and goals in the summer talks, but without giving absolutely valid answers.
For example, Kurz was wary of a second block (“The goal is to avoid that, but everyone has to do their part”). And he couldn’t and didn’t want to say an absolute no to the central issue of school closings for many families. “We want to avoid school closures across the board,” said the head of ÖVP, but of course this cannot be guaranteed.

One of the Achilles heels of the ÖVP, which is sometimes called openly internally, is the question of “social coldness”. There are few accusations that Kurz and his team hit harder than this, that the ÖVP doesn’t care enough about the socially disadvantaged or the underprivileged or that it does politics for the elite. In this regard, it is not by chance or surprising that the Chancellor recently noted with particular enthusiasm that the tax relief measures that will be applied from September (for example, the retrospectively reduced entry fee, the one-time payment for children and unemployed) will particularly benefit the socially disadvantaged.

Kurz also tried to do that in the summer talk. For example, when he declared that the government’s fiscal measures were providing more relief to the “heroes of the crisis” than the union had requested.
“It is no coincidence that the Chancellor has recently addressed the issue of loneliness in old age,” adds Bachmayer. This did not happen in the summer talk. However, Kurz wants to invite you to a panel discussion on the subject at the Chancellery on September 9.
Social issues and work: weren’t those issues traditionally claimed by the SPÖ for itself?
Bachmayer sees the focus on a system: “After successfully competing with the FPÖ on the issue of integration, the Chancellor will now try to steal the issues from the SPÖ.”