Housing crisis: Only 300 properties available for rent in Dublin
While supply is becoming virtually nonexistent, rents are increasing faster than anytime in the last 16 years
L-R: City Councilor for Healthcare Robert Krotzer, Mayor Elke Kahr, KPÖ representative Claudia Klimt-Weithaler, City Councilor Manfred Eber, Source: Elke Kahr on Facebook
For the last 20 years, elected members of the Communist Party in Austria (KPÖ) have been donating the majority of their salaries
Yesterday, the new mayor of Graz, in Austria, Elke Kahr invited citizens in need of money to come to the Styrian Communists Party (KPÖ) ‘Open Accounts Day’ (Tag der offenen Konten) event. The ‘Open Accounts Day’ represents a proverbial charity ‘pot’, where federal, state and municipal representatives from the Communist Party donate about two-thirds of their salaries to help vulnerable people.
By the end of the year, the donations pot would have distributed around 215,000 euros to citizens. According to Mayor Kahr, despite municipal and government social programmes, there are many people in need of non-bureaucratic money.
Representatives of the Styrian branch of the KPÖ started giving away the majority of their salaries in 1998, with Ernest Kaltenegger, a local party member and former city councillor in Graz showing the way. The practice stuck and became sort of a staple of local politics, with the aim of bringing KPÖ politicians closer to the troubles of the most vulnerable members of society. Since then, the party has donated nearly 2.6 million euros.
According to ORF, City Councillors, in particular, are keeping only 2,000 euros from their 6,100-euro salaries, while Mayor Kahr will take home a modest 2,200 euros from her increased mayoral salary.
When answering allegations about populism, Elke Kahr explained that, on the one hand, most of the people they end up donating to are not eligible to vote anyway. Furthermore, she said that most of her colleagues join in out of conviction, rather than because of opportunism.
She also pointed out that if a local leader earns significantly more than the average wage in the city, there is a risk of detached elitism from the issues lording over citizens' lives.
The Graz Communists have been in opposition in the local government since the 1950s and now that they are in control, donating salaries seems like placing a bandage on a dysfunctional social system, which fails its citizens.
The Graz ruling coalition between the KPÖ, the Greens and the Social Democrats (SPÖ) has a similar view on things and has thus proposed a major social expansion during their term. One of the first measures they have implemented for 2022 is a suspension of fee hikes on municipal services like garbage collection and municipal rents.
Mayor Kahr has called on the federal government to impose price caps on certain food items and energy prices, citing France as an example as well as advice from the EU Commission. She continued by explaining that the prolonged economic damage brought on by the pandemic has led to a sustained loss of savings and citizens are craving some form of economic relief.
The country now joins Finland in urging the EU to stop the issuing of Schengen visas to Russian citizens
While supply is becoming virtually nonexistent, rents are increasing faster than anytime in the last 16 years
Share your thoughts on how the European funds can work better for you and people like you
The isle is a member of the Blue Municipalities Network, which aims to help clean up the Aegean Sea
This year, authorities will be boosting their efforts to get people familiar with different sides of the water body
The country is keen on doing its part to ensure technological independency for the EU
Eric Straumann appealed to local restaurant businesses and citizens to step in, facing the ban on watering due to the extreme drought
A giant underground reservoir will purify water and release it when needed, thus preventing drought and saving a lot of money for the municipality
Mayor Katja Dörner explained that the measure is aimed at low-income residents, as a response to rising fuel prices
If we already have low-emissions and low-speed areas, why not also have ones dedicated to lots-of-love?
Authorities in the city of Bonn have issued a warning to citizens to avoid the unpaved areas in the drying riverbed
The pets living with disadvantaged residents in the Portuguese capital have not been forgotten
These will be spread across 11 EU countries and will serve to support the EU Missions
The European Commission has accepted to develop the idea
An interview about AYR, one of the 2021 New European Bauhaus Prize winners
A conversation with the President of the European Committee of the Regions, about energy, climate change and the underrated importance of cohesion policy
Interview with Herald Ruijters, Director, Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE), European Commission
A conversation with the Mayor of Matosinhos, Portugal’s first UN Resilience Hub