Austria on a collision course with the European Union - Bloomberg

Austria’s government coalition parties were on the wires, via Bloomberg, as it hammered out a 'new policy agenda' for the next 18 months before the next scheduled election, averting the threat of a snap vote that could bring the populist right to power.

Key Highlights:

 •Chancellor Christian Kern of the center-left Social Democrats and Reinhold Mitterlehner of the conservative People’s Party said their plan’s concrete measures will boost employment, support Austria’s competitiveness and increase public security.

 •The coalition of Austria’s two main centrist parties, which has ruled the country in 42 of 72 years since World War II, has become increasingly fragile in the past decade.

 •The government seeks to create 70,000 jobs with measures including tax relief for companies hiring new workers and keeping older employees on payrolls for longer. 

 •While middle-class earners will get relief by a removal of inflation-driven tax increases known as “bracket creep” and travelers will have plane-ticket levies cut in half, Austria will seek more taxes from international companies like Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Kern said.

 •Austria will explore options to restrict labor immigration from eastern European members, according to the document outlining the measures. It is also introducing a second mandatory pre-school year, university tuition fees to improve funding and pledges to provide tablet or laptop computers to all students from fifth grade.