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The green secretary of state for culture had recently been criticized for the government’s actions regarding the crown’s measures in the field of culture. You should now have a successor.
Ulrike Lunacek resigns as Secretary of State for Art and Culture. She announced this Friday at a press conference.
“Originally, I wanted to announce opening options for events as well as new financial support today,” said the green politician. But this week he noted that pressure and criticism from the arts and culture sector had not eased, although improvements had been made. She could no longer progress with her strengths and had no chance. In the crown crisis, “what I want to do everything possible to do it has not been successful to the necessary extent.”
Lunacek gets successor
The former Vice President of the European Parliament said she wanted to use her extensive networks for Austria’s arts and culture sector. He promised that to Green Party leader Werner Kogler when he asked him on New Year’s Eve if he wanted to be part of the government as Secretary of State. “I am making room for someone else,” Lunacek said now.
No one has yet been told who it will be. Only one thing is certain: Lunacek will have a successor. The Greens have stipulated at least gender parity for themselves: with two ministers, a secretary of state would tip the gender balance in favor of men. Vice Chancellor Kogler announced on Friday, the successor will be set early next week.
In any case, Lunacek conveyed in his farewell statement that he was concerned about Austria as a cultural site: it was characterized by precarious conditions and he urgently needed more money to continue to play a leading role in the world league of artistic and cultural life.
Also attracts Kurz and Kogler
Lunacek was widely criticized for dealing with the devastating measures taken against the crown crisis in the cultural sector. The indictment above all: European expert Lunacek has no technical experience in the arts and culture. Neos and FPÖ had called for his resignation, while the other chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) and the responsible minister, i.e. Deputy Chancellor Kogler, had called for action.
So on Thursday Josefstadt theater director Herbert Föttinger addressed Kurz directly: “You, Federal Chancellor Kurz, must commit to this cultural nation. Loud and clear. If the cultural nation no longer exists after this pandemic, you are responsible. “However, Gerhard Ruiss, of the IG authors, asked Kogler” to appear in government as minister of art and culture. “Ruis said the the secretary of state would not improve the “current planning disaster,” Ruis said.
The occupation caused amazement
In the course of the Secretary of State’s action in the crown crisis, the occupation of the Greens by the Secretary of State for Culture had also become a problem per se in the formation of the government with the ÖVP. The fact that Lunacek, who was the leader of the foreign policy and of the delegation of the Greens and vice-president in the European Parliament for a long time and who had to answer for the case of the Greens in 2017, whose case of the National Council, was responsible from the art and culture agenda, he had surprised at that time. In January, “Die Presse” wrote about the turquoise green dynamic behind the Secretary of State’s appointment: “It is a story of self-attachment and dominance.”
In particular, because the Greens with Eva Blimlinger would have had a proven specialist in their own ranks: the rector of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts “would have loved to do the job,” as Blimlinger himself said in an interview this week. She personally, Blimlinger continued, could understand the criticism of Lunacek, but at the same time Kogler was also required, to whom he was to take responsibility in his role as minister in charge. Incidentally, Blimlinger does not want to inherit Lunacek as Secretary of State. She wants to stay on the National Council, where she heads the culture committee.
Lunacek’s work as secretary of state for culture was criticized even before the crown crisis. For the first time, he drew attention with the statement that in the case of Peter Handkes “he could not understand the decision of the Nobel Prize for Literature”; At a Bob Dylan concert in Vienna, she said, “It was boring, sorry.” The result was protests to the Senate and the art curia.
The Greens respect Lunacek’s decision to resign, as club chief Sigrid Mauer said on Friday: “Ulrike Lunacek has done a great political job for the Greens and therefore also left a lasting mark on the party.” He assumed responsibility for the Green Party even in difficult times. – and was a pioneer in many areas: “As a committed feminist, pioneer of a united Europe and also as the first lesbian member expelled from the National Council”.
To person
Ulrike Lunacek, * 26. May 1957 in Krems / D., studied English and Spanish interpretation at the University of Innsbruck. Active with the Greens since the 1990s, Federal Director General in 1996. 1999 Member of the National Council, 2009 change to the European Parliament. There she was vice president, rapporteur for Kosovo and made a name for herself as an expert on European politics with a focus on women, gender and social issues.
The Greens scored 14.5 percent in 2014, the second-best candidate for an EU election, the best result historically in a national poll. In 2017, when she ran as the top candidate for the National Council elections under the most adverse conditions, there was a terrible defeat, and the Greens were expelled from the National Council.
