SPÖ accused the government of inaction: “Banks make unfairly high profits, they should be intervened instead of watching!”

2023-08-11 12:09:12

Vienna. After the FPÖ, the SPÖ also joined the discussion of “designing a special tax for banks”. Like the Freedom Party, the SPÖ thinks that unfairly high profits are being made and that the government should therefore take countermeasures.

SPÖ Finance Spokesperson Jan Krainer said in a statement on Thursday: “When the market fails, intervene rather than monitor” He addressed the government with his words. Krainer referred to relevant regulations in other countries, without directly charging a special tax for Austrian banks. Pointing out that there is a gap between the development of savings interest rates and loan interest rates, Krainer said, “While the governments of Great Britain, Germany, France and now Italy reacted with measures, Austria remained inactive. In this country, there is neither a functioning competition nor a government that conducts politics professionally.” Krainer pointed out that due to this gap between interest rates, there will be an explosion in loan and overdraft interest rates, but savings interest rates will remain almost unchanged.

Italy triggered the debate

The debate was triggered by the Italian government’s proposal to withdraw money from banks through a special tax. Rationale: Italian financial institutions would adjust loan rates sharply upward after the European Central Bank’s key interest rate increases, but would make no adjustments to savings interest rates. On Tuesday, the Freedom Party, seeing a similar development, called for a measure along the Italian model. However, on Wednesday, Finance Minister Magnus Brunner (ÖVP) rejected the idea, saying it was “not planned at the moment”. (yenivatan.at)