Innsbruck (OTS) – For decades, the Tyrolean community association played one of the first fiddles in state politics. Because the ÖVP held the scepter in their hands. With the GemNova bankruptcy and the internal wrangling, the association is threatened with an irreversible loss of power.
Thumbs up – or down. During his tenure as President of the Association of Tyrolean Municipalities, Ernst Schöpf, the long-term mayor of Sölden, was witty and pointed, but sometimes feared to be razor-sharp. Legislative amendments initiated, adapted or put on the back burner. The powerful VP politician was feared in the country house. After all, the 276 members of the association – and thus mostly VP mayors – were known there behind him. The bankruptcy of the association’s GemNova companies shook this bulwark to its foundations. Schöpf has already thrown in the towel internally, but now the entire association is shaking. And with it its previous power. Whoever succeeds Schöpf will not only take over an association that is financially on the ropes, but also one that must first redefine its future role in the game of political forces in Tyrol.
When the municipalities denied GemNova financial rescue in July and as a result almost all subsidiaries are in bankruptcy, the members of the association have declared this chapter to be over, but have not yet opened that of the inevitable work-up. And it is neither to be expected nor realistic that this will happen before the new D-Day – the community day scheduled for September 19th. After all, legal disputes are imminent – and they can take a long time. In addition, until then it is about something more existential: the economic survival of the association. Liabilities and (future) claims related to the bankruptcy of the association companies in the millions are in the room. Money that the municipalities have to find first. By increasing membership fees. And possibly for years. In July, the necessary majority of 90 percent was not in sight.
Politically, the association of municipalities is threatened one way or another with an irreversible loss of power at state level. The open trench warfare in the four-person presidium does not stop at the 39-strong board. The strength of the community association is no longer the sum of its members. She is his weakness.
The black-red state government cannot be indifferent to the signs of disintegration of the association of municipalities. Their members sit in too many state committees for that. LH Anton Mattle (VP) and Vice Georg Dornauer (SP) could seize the opportunity to straighten out the balance of power after the (personnel) reorganization of the association. In terms of the country.
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