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TAGS: KPAO AU OPRC
 
SUBJECT: AUSTRIAN MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS: October 18, 2006 
 
Coalition Talks Continue 
 
¶1. The OeVP and the SPOe met on Tuesday for their second round of 
talks on forming a new coalition government. Although the two 
parties' negotiation teams addressed key topics at yesterday's 
meeting, they continue to be divided on a number of issues. While 
some Austrian media believe the talks are an indication a grand 
coalition may soon be a done deal, other newspapers report of a 
"poisoned climate" at the talks. 
Like all Austrian media, semi-official daily Wiener Zeitung says the 
two parties at their meeting on Tuesday agreed on a joint checking 
of the finances by October 27, when the next round of talks will be 
held. The SPOe and the OeVP have also said they want to discuss the 
key issues on the agenda, and have set up ten negotiation 
sub-groups, which are to start working this week. Mass-circulation 
tabloid Kronen Zeitung writes political observers in Austria are 
 
confident that it will be clear by mid-November whether the Social 
Democrats and the Conservatives will, indeed, form a grand 
coalition. In contrast, independent provincial daily Salzburger 
Nachrichten believes the "poisoned atmosphere" between the SPOe and 
the OeVP, marked by competition and squabbles over positions to be 
distributed, will likely paralyze the coalition talks. 
 
 
Pressure on OeVP 
 
¶2. Speaking to an Austrian daily, Vienna Mayor Michael Haeupl is 
urging the OeVP to start working seriously on forming a grand 
coalition, which he believes is the "only real option." Otherwise, 
Haeupl said, the "only logical consequence is a rerun of the general 
elections." 
Vienna Mayor Michael Haeupl (SPOe) is demanding "constructive work" 
from the Conservatives, mass-circulation daily Kurier writes. 
Austria's two leading parties, the SPOe and the OeVP, "will have to 
find a way to cooperate. If the people in the OeVP do not want to do 
so, they should just leave it, and then we'll have a rerun of the 
general elections," Haeupl told the Kurier. The Vienna Mayor also 
criticized the Conservatives for their recent attack on President 
Heinz Fischer: Leading OeVP members had complained that Fischer had 
not given a statement on the controversial Eurofighter purchase 
contract, despite the fact that he had read it, and had labeled the 
President a "dyed-in-the wool Social Democrat who can't wait to 
install an SPOe chancellor." 
 
 
The Eurofighter Controversy Continues 
 
¶3. The former chief strategist of the Austrian armed forces, Gerald 
Karner, told an Austrian weekly that a cancellation of the 
Eurofighter purchase deal would cost the country four billion Euros 
until 2012. 
Pointing out the high costs of a contract cancellation, the Austrian 
military expert cautioned against abandoning the Eurofighter 
purchase deal, semi-official daily Wiener Zeitung writes. Gerald 
Karner believes that Austria would "lose its reputation and its 
money," should the government back out of the deal. Such a move, he 
argues, cannot be in the political interest of the SPOe. The Greens, 
however, remain opposed to the Eurofighter jets, and will table 
motions for the cancellation both of the purchase deal and the 
financial authorization for the purchase of the interceptors from 
the 2003 budget legislation. 
 
 
EU-US Plan to Save the Ozone Layer 
 
¶4. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is calling for a 
trans-Atlantic initiative to combat global warming by limiting 
industrial emissions. The plan would involve California, the member 
states of the European Union, as well as seven other US states. 
According to semi-official daily Wiener Zeitung, the plan calls for 
setting up a system whereby the parties involved could trade, buy or 
sell industrial emission credits as regulated under the terms of the 
Kyoto Protocol. Reducing admissions was a key part of the agreement, 
but the Bush administration withdrew from efforts to implement Kyoto 
in 2001, a move that strained US-EU ties. The environment and rising 
fuel prices are some of the issues dominating the Austrian-born 
California governor's bid to be re-elected next month, when a 
referendum on a proposed new gasoline tax will also be on the 
ballot. Schwarzenegger opposes such a tax, which has the public 
support of former president Bill Clinton and former Vice-President 
Al Gore, the daily says. 
North Korea Warned against 2nd Test 
 
¶5. The regime in Pyongyang is apparently preparing yet another 
nuclear test. Both North Korea and the US are meanwhile accusing 
each other of carrying out "belligerent acts" in the conflict over 
North Korea's nuclear program. 
Meanwhile ORF radio early morning news Morgenjournal says that US 
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is on her way to East Asia to 
 
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discuss how to fully impose UN sanctions on North Korea. However, 
according to commentator for mass circulation tabloid Oesterreich 
Patrik Volf, "US nuclear policy has reached its end." He says it 
"took barely a week for both sides to reach the stage of using the 
word 'war' in their statements. North Korea views the UN Security 
Council's decision (to which its key ally China agreed) a 
'declaration of war,' while the US regards a possible second nuclear 
test as 'an act of war.' Iran, the next rising nuclear power will 
have to carefully watch this game, because the US statements are by 
no means directed against North Korea exclusively. They mark any 
further development in the nuclear conflict at the Persian Gulf 
where limits are to be drawn. This means for North Korea:  The US 
cannot move towards the negotiation table, because that would be a 
clear signal to Iran:  You are only a partner if you have nuclear 
weapons." 
 
 
Iran Sanctions Possible 
 
¶6. In the dispute over Tehran's nuclear ambitions, the EU no longer 
expects a diplomatic solution. UN measures against Iran are 
"unavoidable," according to German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter 
Steinmeier. 
Centrist daily Die Presse reports that at their meeting in 
Luxembourg yesterday, the EU foreign ministers are pushing for 
"sanctions being imposed gradually." Spain's Under Secretary for the 
EU Alberto Navarro pointed out that unlike the US, Europe is 
dependent on Iranian oil. Nonetheless, the UN Security Coucil could 
make a preliminary decision on sanctions, aimed primarily at the 
country's nuclear industry, as early as next week, the daily says. 
Measures could include trade restrictions on technical supplies, as 
well as a freeze on contacts with Iranian scientists and on 
investments in Iran's nuclear industry. 
 
 
Stay the Course - or Do an About-Face? 
 
¶7. Middle East expert and former Austrian envoy to Iraq Gudrun 
Harrer says in an analysis of the situation in Iraq that the current 
escalation of violence in the country is reinforcing doubts whether 
the Iraqi government will ever be in control. 
Gudrun Harrer, foreign editor for liberal daily Der Standard and 
Austria's former special envoy to Iraq, writes that although no-one 
seems to have a solution for the ongoing problems in Iraq, George 
Bush's mantra of "staying the course" is beginning to sound a lot 
like wishful thinking, and the question of its implementation will 
likely not be decided in Washington or Baghdad's Green Zone, but in 
the Iraqi capital's streets. It is high-season for forecasts on the 
development of Iraq, as well as for American exit strategies, which 
are increasingly put forward not only by the opponents of the war 
and by the more creative journalists, but also by at least partly 
official sources, Harrer says. Now, statements, as for example by US 
Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, stating that Iraqi Premier Nuri 
Al-Maliki has two months time to get things under control, seem to 
suggest the US might take steps otherwise. 
 
For full text in German go to: http://derstandard.at/ --> Politik 
--> International --> Nahost --> Irak --> "Kurs halten oder das 
Steuer herumreissen" 
McCaw