Criticism of the opposition: U-Committee receives blackened video of Ibiza

The U-Committee on the Ibiza affair received the video from the Vienna Prosecutor’s Office after a long period of uncertainty. The criticism comes from the opposition for the extension.

AUSTRIA. At least parts of the streamed video have been hidden. The tone is also missing in some passages, as the leader of the SPÖ parliamentary group, Jan Krainer, points out on Twitter. “The fight to get the full video goes on anyway,” said Krainer, who also called the fight for the “monkey dance.” According to the daily Krone, “exactly four hours and forty minutes of the video were given to the committee.

According to the leader of the NEOS parliamentary group, Stephanie Krisper, it has been beyond all discussion that the video should be transmitted to Committee U in its entirety and raw. “It is the specific mandate of the U-Committee to check if there has been any political influence in the investigation of the special commission. For this reason alone, it is necessary to see what the SoKo had to investigate based on the video.

Krisper also criticizes the timing of the transfer. Because on Wednesday the U-Committee goes to the next round after the summer holidays with the questioning of the controversial chairman of the committee, Wolfgang Sobotka. The NEOS politician suspects a diversionary maneuver here, meaning the reports in the run-up to the polls restart would likely only revolve around video.

Sobotka Connections

The interrogation will definitely be explosive: the opposition suspects that the ÖVP politician himself is part of a suspicious network around corruption and law enforcement. In recent years, the Alois Mock Institute, run by Sobotka, has received money from the Novomatic gaming group, whose involvement in the casino affair and alleged hidden party donations are being scrutinized by the committee. Furthermore, Sobotka is said to have hampered the committee’s work, according to the opposition. But despite the accusations, Sobotka was and is not ready to resign from his presidency. Due to his questioning on Wednesday, he will be represented by the second president of the National Council, Doris Bures (SPÖ), throughout the day. Former Novomatic head of corporate communications Bernhard Krumpel and Markus Braun, a member of the Sigma Investment AG board and ORF’s liberal board of directors, will also be questioned on Wednesday.