The National Council deals with the budget and the Blumel referendum – politics

The budget proposal from Finance Minister Gernot Blümel (ÖVP) will be put to parliamentary treatment for the first time on Thursday.

The so-called “first reading” is a general debate on the draft budget, which foresees a crown-related deficit of 6.3 percent of gross domestic product by 2021. More money is going to the ministries of education, defense and infrastructure , among others.

In addition to the budget debate, after which the law is sent to the competent committee for further discussion, the plenary session is dominated by various popular petitions that have overcome the obstacle of 100,000 statements of support to be addressed in the National Council. The most successful of these was the popular climate initiative. The constitutional safeguard of the ban on smoking in restaurants, European solidarity in the care of refugees and the withdrawal of the Euratom Treaty are the other initiatives that MEPs should discuss.

An opposition motion of no confidence against Defense Minister Klaudia Tanner (ÖVP) has no chance of approval. A request for “extradition” of the third president of the National Council, Norbert Hofer (FPÖ), is also rejected – by all parliamentary groups – because he called the Koran more dangerous than the corona virus in a public act.

The first session of the plenary week, culminating in the budget speech, ended on Wednesday evening after about twelve hours. A request from the SPÖ to set a deadline, which was aimed at banning glyphosate, was only supported by the FPÖ and therefore without a majority. On the other hand, a proposal for a resolution in turquoise, green and pink was unanimously accepted with the aim of incorporating crisis management at the national level on a comprehensive legal basis and institutionalizing it.