US embassy cable - 05VIENNA1924

UNCLAS VIENNA 001924 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR EUR/AGS AND EUR/OHI 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KNAR, PHUM, PGOV, AU 
SUBJECT:  AUSTRIA: PARTIES PREVENT KAMPL FROM ASSUMING 
CHAIR OF UPPER HOUSE 
 
REF: VIENNA 1484 
 
THIS MESSAGE IS SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED. 
 
1.  (SBU) On June 8, all parties in Austria's parliament 
agreed on a strategy to prevent a controversial 
nationalist from becoming president of the Upper House as 
of July 1.  The deputy, Siegfried Kampl, unleashed a 
storm of protest in April when he complained of "brutal 
persecution" of Nazis after World War II.  At first, 
Kampl agreed to resign his seat, but he later retracted 
the offer.  As a result, a constitutional amendment 
became necessary in order to avoid the spectacle of Kampl 
wielding the gavel in one of Parliament's two chambers. 
With the backing of all parties, the amendment passed the 
Lower House unanimously, with just one abstention. 
 
2.  (SBU) The Upper House will have to approve the law, 
which will then go to President Heinz Fischer on June 26. 
Fischer has already announced he will sign it.  The 
constitutional change will allow state legislatures to 
change the rank-order of their deputies to the Upper 
House.  This ranking determines who will assume the 
presidency of the chamber (which rotates among the states 
every half year).  At its next session from June 28-30, 
the Carinthian state legislature will move another deputy 
to first position above Kampl, enabling him, rather than 
Kampl, to preside over the Upper House starting July 1. 
 
3.  (SBU) Another nationalist figure in the Upper House, 
John Gudenus, added fuel to the fire by amplifying on his 
previous comments questioning the existence of Nazi gas 
chambers.  Gudenus specified that there had been "no gas 
chambers in the Third Reich, but in Poland."  The Public 
Prosecutor's office subsequently began a new criminal 
investigation against Gudenus for violation of Austrian 
laws prohibiting Holocaust denial. 
 
4.  (SBU) COMMENT: Kampl and Gudenus's statements were 
broadly unacceptable in Austria, even among members of 
the right-wing Freedom Party (FPO) and the Alliance 
Future Austria (BZO).  Their refusal to recant raised a 
storm of public protest from across the political 
spectrum, which forced the two deputies to resign their 
party memberships and leave the combined FPO-BZO 
parliamentary caucus.  The entire political leadership of 
Austria called for them also to surrender their mandates 
as members of the Upper House -- which they so far have 
refused to do.  However, should he refuse to step down 
voluntarily, Gudenus will lose his seat in the Upper 
House after Vienna state elections in fall 2005.  It is 
clear his party will not renominate him. 
 
BROWN