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E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OPRC KPAO AU
 
SUBJECT: AUSTRIAN MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS: June 29, 2007 
 
 
Coalition Ice Age? 
 
¶1. All Austrian media report on the continuing serious tensions in 
the SPOe-OeVP coalition government. Now, the 400 million Euros the 
Defense Minister is expecting to retain from his deal with 
Eurofighter manufacturer EADS has emerged as the latest bone of 
contention between the two major parties. While Minister Darabos 
says he wants the money to go toward education projects, the OeVP 
insists the savings should be used to pay off debts. 
According to ORF online news, Austrian political analysts and 
opinion pollsters have summed up the SPOe-OeVP coalition's image as 
a "government that only fights and doesn't do its job." In an 
interview with liberal daily Der Standard, Defense Minister Norbert 
Darabos meanwhile rejected claims by Vice-Chancellor Wilhelm 
Molterer that Darabos had failed to share the details of the 
agreement on the Eurofighters with the OeVP. He had "informed 
Molterer about all aspects of the deal negotiated with EADS. The 
only detail he and I could not reach an agreement on was reducing 
the number of Eurofighters." Darabos believes that this issue 
triggered the "crash-course" and the "public dispute" between the 
coalition partners. 
 
 
Haider: SPOe Failed on Bilingual Town Signs 
 
¶2. According to Carinthian governor Joerg Haider, the Social 
Democrats have failed in their efforts to resolve the dispute over 
bilingual town signs in Austria's southernmost province. He said he 
is pleased with the majority decision in the parliamentary 
constitutional committee yesterday. On Thursday, the OeVP, the FPOe 
and the BZOe voted against the SPOe's motion to put the issue of the 
town signs on the agenda. The move was backed only by the Greens. 
Mass-circulation tabloid Oesterreich also reports on the tensions 
between the SPOe and the OeVP because of the unresolved issue of 
bilingual town signs in Carinthia. The "coalition crisis is 
reflected in the town sign problem," the daily suggests. After the 
OeVP had rejected a motion tabled by the SPOe to put the matter on 
the agenda in Parliament, Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer accused the 
People's Party of having "let themselves be taken hostage" by 
Carnithian governor Joerg Haider. 
 
 
EU-US Airline Data Exchange 
 
¶3. According to ORF television's news report on Thursday, the United 
States will receive fewer pieces of information about passengers 
flying into the US in the future. A new preliminary agreement 
between the US and the EU defines which data the airlines are 
required to forward to the US. It also says that the United States 
may keep the passenger information for up to 15 years, according to 
ORF TV's prime time news Zeit im Bild I. 
 
 
Brown Reshuffles His Cabinet 
 
¶4. Prime Minister Gordon Brown's new cabinet, which one Austrian 
daily describes as the result of a "reshuffle rather than a radical 
overhaul," met for the first time yesterday. His team includes 
Britain's first female Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, Alistair 
Darling as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and David Miliband as 
Foreign Secretary. Every post except for the defense portfolio has 
changed hands, with seven ministers in cabinet for the first time. 
Jack Straw, a former Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary, has been 
appointed Justice Minister. 
Centrist daily Die Presse argues that with his cabinet reshuffle, 
British Prime minister Gordon Brown has demonstrated that 
rapprochement within the Labour Party is high on his agenda. 
However, Brown had been expected to do more than just reward 
potential competitors. The experts and "defectors" from other 
parties, who he had announced would be included in his "cabinet of 
talents," do not show up on his list. Liberal daily Der Standard 
meanwhile says that "with his mix of time-tested politicians and 
young faces," Brown wants to "demonstrate the announced renewal at 
the personnel level." Likewise, independent provincial daily 
Salzburger Nachrichten comments that the "composition of Brown's 
cabinet confirms observers' expectations that the Prime Minister 
would get a number of young torchbearers as well as old allies from 
his days as the Chancellor of the Exchequer on board. Opposition 
politicians have criticized, however, that most members of Brown's 
government had already held cabinet posts under Blair, and had 
merely been relegated to different assignments." 
 
 
Senate Blocks Immigration Bill 
 
¶5. The US Senate has blocked a vote on a landmark bill that could 
have given legal status to around twelve million immigrants living 
and working illegally in the United States. The decision was a major 
blow to one of President George Bush's key policy plans. The 
opposition came from conservatives within President Bush's own 
Republican Party, who said the bill would have given amnesty to 
illegal immigrants. One Austrian daily suggests the issue may have 
been "too hot a topic" for the upcoming election year 2008. 
Semi-official daily Wiener Zeitung suggests that with the Senate's 
decision to block a bill on immigration, US President George Bush 
may have "squandered his last chance before the 2008 presidential 
elections to distinguish himself on the domestic policy front." With 
46 votes against, the draft bill "must be considered as having 
failed." For Bush, who has been working on the reform for year, the 
Senate's decision is a "double defeat," the daily says: First, 
Republican Senators were among those rejecting the draft 
legislation, and second, immigration has already become one of the 
key election campaign issues," according to the Wiener Zeitung. 
Kilner