Government reshuffle delayed due to parliamentary error

30 Jun 2022

The Federal Ministries Act set to be passed in Austria on Wednesday to restructure competences has been delayed.

The National Council failed to pass the most recent text of the legislation in the middle of this month, causing further delays to changes made within government departments.

The text of the law should have included an amendment from the Constitutional Committee. Yet due to an editorial error by the parliamentary management, the amendment wasn’t included.

“The law will not be passed today. It has to be corrected first,” stated Federal Council President Christine Schwarz-Fuchs to regional newspaper VN.

Following resignations from conservative party ÖVP members, Elisabeth Köstinger and Margarete Schramböck in the middle of last month, Chancellor Karl Nehammer unveiled the federal government should be reshuffled.

As such, Austria’s economy ministry is due to be integrated into the labour ministry, whilst there will be a reduction to the agriculture ministry. In addition, telecom and digitisation will be incorporated into the finance ministry.

That said, these modifications in competences have not as yet been formally applied, Euractiv reports.

The parliamentary groups are set to hold further talks on the way to move forward following this oversight. According to the report by the VN regional newspaper, the Austrian Federal Council is set to appeal against the decision made by the National Council.

There has been a total of 14 government reshuffles in the country since the Green-Conservative government took office back in January 2020. This included three different chancellors and three health ministers, the report goes on to say.