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Due to his role as president of the Alois Mock Institute, the Greens are now also asking President Wolfgang Sobotka (VP) to suspend the chairmanship of the Ibiza Research Committee. The reason for this is the payments that are said to have flowed to the institute from the Novomatic playgroup. “He has to give a clarification,” said the leader of the Green Group in Committee U, Nina Tomaselli. Until then, the second president of the National Council, Doris Bures (SP), should chair the committee. The SPÖ also asked for this on Tuesday, and they and the Neos also want to invite Sobotka again as a witness to Committee U and report them on suspicion of false statements.
Because on Wednesday it became known that the institute founded by Sobotka in 2012 had received a grant of 109,000 euros from Novomatic. In addition to the previously known announcements worth € 14,000, there are also high “cost reimbursements” between 2013 and 2019.
In his poll, the political vice president had admitted that, in addition to the advertisements, Novomatic had also contributed a buffet and rooms for events. But: “For the rest, there was nothing that went to the Alois-Mock-Institut in any way as sponsorship or donation or in kind.”
Sobotka’s spokesperson emphasized that the sum mentioned in the committee also includes Novomatic’s internal event accounts. The president does not need to know these amounts. Furthermore, only part of the sum falls within Committee U’s investigation period. The Alois Mock Institute said Thursday that it had never received the € 109,000 from Novomatic. Rather, it is based on “internal billing for room rentals, technology, etc. from one Novomatic affiliate to another group affiliate.” This should not be “mixed with direct payments”.
“The clean way would be if he was invited again as an informant and Bures assumed the presidency,” insists Tomaselli in the direction of Sobotka. If he could not clarify the contradictions with his previous statements in the U-Committee, “then it will no longer work with the chair.”
