Vienna, 20.04.2022 – The Vienna Chamber of Commerce is one of Austria's biggest brakes on effective climate protection measures – so today's statement is hardly surprising. "Whenever climate targets are formulated or climate protection measures are adopted, it is the Chamber of Commerce that crosses the line. This is how it was when the EU set its emission targets for 2030, so it was with the introduction of CO2 pricing and so it is with the cancellation of the Lobau motorway," says Lena Schilling von LobauBleibt, "the Chamber of Commerce uses all its power to block climate protection – together with the Vienna city government, which speaks to the Chamber of Commerce after the mouth."
"It is obvious whose interests are in the background. Large construction companies such as Strabag and Porr as well as large international corporations will benefit. Local businesses and small self-employed people like me have none of this," says Anna Kontriner from LobauBleibt. "We depend on local added value and short distances, not on a motorway that brings transit traffic to Vienna."
"The fact that the Chamber of Commerce and the city government have all means right to push through the interests of the corporations is shown again and again in a frightening way: Just today, 34 activists who experienced violence by the police and the judicial guard a few weeks ago during the evacuation of an occupied motorway construction site have published a statement (statement from the 34 imprisoned activists on eviction and police violence in the police detention center (PAZ) – Lobau remains). And today there is also a court hearing against a police officer who almost deliberately ran over a climate activist in 2019. Police violence against climate activists has a system," says Lucia Steinwender of LobauBleibt. "But our protest continues, we are getting more and more and louder. On 28 May is the party congress of the SPÖ. And we will be there with our protest – because if politicians do not respond to the interests of the people, then the people come to them!"
Questions and contact
Lena Schilling (Youth Council)
lena.ats@gmx.at
+43 660 584 8884
Anna Kontriner (Extinction Rebellion)
presse@xrebellion.at
+43677 64123091