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Today in Austria: A round-up of the latest news on Friday

Find out what's going on in Austria today with The Local's short round-up of the news.

Published: 5 March 2021 09:27 CET
A cafe with chairs being set up outside
Will cafes open up in Austria in the spring? Odd ANDERSEN / AFP

Outdoor dining plan thrown into doubt by rise in intensive care cases

Austria’s planned further openings, including outdoor dining openings on 27th March are looking increasingly unlikely, according to Der Standard newspaper.

Coronavirus infections are rising rapidly and the number of intensive care beds occupied by corona cases has increased by 20 percent in one week.

Health Minister Rudolf Anschober has said he is “alarmed” by the latest figures the newspaper reports.

On Thursday, 2,324 new infections were registered in 24 hours. Planned opening steps in Easter will be decided on 15th March.

Vienna’s City Councillor says opening plan is “realistic”

However, Vienna Health City Councillor Peter Hacker told broadcaster ORF that opening outdoor dining areas in Vienna on March 27th was “quite realistic”.

He proposes making Vienna’s Stadtpark into a giant outdoor eating area. 

Coronavirus infections on the rise

The 7-day incidence or number of new infections with the coronavirus in the past seven days per 100,000 inhabitants, has increased.

According to the Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES), it is 169 as of Thursday. The number is highest in Salzburg (223), Lower Austria (206.4) and Burgenland (205.1).

The value is still lowest in Vorarlberg (76.5) and Tyrol (114.4).

MAPS: Where are Austria’s coronavirus hotspots?

Exit controls in Carinthia

Exit controls are being introduced for the Carinthian district of Hermagor, which is currently particularly affected by the British coronavirus variant (B.1.1.7), with a seven-day incidence of 670.

From Tuesday, proof of a negative corona test taken in the previous 48 hours or coronavirus infection from the past six months will be required to leave the area.

Police will carry out controls at seven checkpoints. Schoolchildren will switch to distance learning.

Austria, Israel and Denmark plan joint vaccine production

Austria, Israel and Denmark want to join forces in vaccine production following a vaccination summit in Israel, which some European commentators saw as a signal that the EU’s cohesion in the fight against the pandemic is cracking.

READ: Austria and Denmark chided by EU ally over Israel vaccine plan

The heads of government agreed on a joint research foundation, initially endowed with 50 million euros to fund vaccine development projects, Der Standard reports.

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz says other states including EU members have already expressed interest in joining the cooperation. The Brilife vaccine, made in Israel, should hit the market next summer.

Curevac vaccine to be manufactured in Austria 

Biotech company Curevac will receive support from Novartis in the production of its Covid-19 vaccine.

Novartis will start manufacturing the vaccine in its Kundl plant in Austria in the second quarter, with the first doses expected to be delivered from the summer, according to German newspaper Handelsblatt.

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VIENNA

Vienna Festival director Milo Rau hits back at anti-Semitism accusations

One of the latest events in Europe to be hit with accusations of anti-Semitism, the Vienna Festival kicks off Friday, with its new director, Milo Rau, urging that places of culture be kept free of the "antagonism" of the Israel-Hamas war while still tackling difficult issues.

Published: 17 May 2024 14:48 CEST
Vienna Festival director Milo Rau hits back at anti-Semitism accusations

As the conflict in Gaza sharply polarises opinion, “we must be inflexible” in defending the free exchange of ideas and opinions, the acclaimed Swiss director told AFP in an interview this week.

“I’m not going to take a step aside… If we let the antagonism of the war and of our society seep into our cultural and academic institutions, we will have completely lost,” said the 47-year-old, who will inaugurate the Wiener Festwochen, a festival of theatre, concerts, opera, film and lectures that runs until June 23rd in the Austrian capital and that has taken on a more political turn under his tenure.

The Swiss director has made his name as a provocateur, whether travelling to Moscow to stage a re-enactment of the trial of Russian protest punk band Pussy Riot, using children to play out the story of notorious Belgian paedophile Marc Dutroux, or trying to recruit Islamic State jihadists as actors.

Completely ridiculous 

The Vienna Festival has angered Austria’s conservative-led government — which is close to Israel — by inviting Greek former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis and French Nobel Prize winner for literature Annie Ernaux, both considered too critical of Israel.

A speech ahead of the festival on Judenplatz (Jews’ Square) by Israeli-German philosopher Omri Boehm — who has called for replacing Israel with a bi-national state for Arabs and Jews —  also made noise.

“Who will be left to invite?  Every day, there are around ten articles accusing us of being anti-Semitic, saying that our flag looks like the Palestinian flag, completely ridiculous things,” Rau said, as he worked from a giant bed which has been especially designed by art students and installed at the festival office.

Hamas’ bloody October 7th assault on southern Israel and the devastating Israeli response have stoked existing rancour over the Middle East conflict between two diametrically opposed camps in Europe.

In this climate, “listening to the other side is already treachery,” lamented the artistic director.

“Wars begin in this impossibility of listening, and I find it sad that we Europeans are repeating war at our level,” he said.

As head of also the NTGent theatre in the Belgian city of Ghent, he adds his time currently “is divided between a pro-Palestinian country and a pro-Israeli country,” or between “colonial guilt” in Belgium and “genocide guilt” in Austria, Adolf Hitler’s birthplace.

Institutional revolution

The “Free Republic of Vienna” will be proclaimed on Friday as this year’s Vienna Festival celebrates. according to Rau, “a second modernism, democratic, open to the world” in the city of the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, and artist and symbolist master Gustav Klimt.

Some 50,000 people are expected to attend the opening ceremony on the square in front of Vienna’s majestic neo-Gothic town hall.

With Rau describing it as an “institutional revolution” and unlike any other festival in Europe, the republic has its own anthem, its own flag and a council made up of Viennese citizens, as well as honorary members, including Varoufakis and Ernaux, who will participate virtually in the debates.

The republic will also have show trials — with real lawyers, judges and politicians participating — on three weekends.

Though there won’t be any verdicts, Rau himself will be in the dock to embody “the elitist art system”, followed by the republic of Austria and finally by the anti-immigrant far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), which leads polls in the Alpine EU member ahead of September national elections.

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