The outcome of Sunday's Austrian national elections will present a litmus test of the new government's ability to resist implementing the largest European gas deal with Iran. In 2007, the partially state-owned Austrian oil company OMV cut a preliminary €22 billion deal with the Islamic Republic to gain access to its South Par gas field.
Israeli Ambassador to Austria Dan Ashbel.
Photo: Courtesy
The Austrian state is the controlling shareholder of OMV (31.5 percent), and has been the subject of intense criticism for its decision to support OMV's agreement with Teheran to develop the gas field. Terrorism and security experts argue that Iran can use profits generated by the OMV-deal to finance its nuclear weapons program and to support Hizbullah and Hamas terrorist activities.
In a telephone interview with The Jerusalem Post this week, Dan Ashbel, the Israeli ambassador in Vienna, said, "Austria is holding its foot in the door" regarding the OMV-Iran deal and OMV has "not developed in the direction of signing an agreement or stopping the deal."
"We made it clear to Austria that economic sanctions are very important and that Iran poses a danger not just for Israel but for the whole region," Ashbel added.
While "all political leaders of this country say they will adhere to resolutions passed by the UN and EU, it is not a secret that the political leadership of Austria is not in favor of sanctions. Foreign Minister [Ursula] Plassnik said in Israel six months ago to her counterpart [Tzipi Livni]" that she did not favor economic sanctions against Iran.
Multiple calls and e-mails to Gerald Fleischmann, spokesman for Plassnick's conservative People's Party, were not returned.
The Post sent queries to a number of Austrian political parties regarding their position on the OMV deal.
Andreas Schieder, a Social Democratic Party state secretary in the Federal Chancellery, wrote in an e-mail to the Post, "It is not possible for a political party to tell privatized business which projects to pursue and which not to."
In contrast, Ulrike Lunacek, Green Party foreign policy representative, wrote, "A conclusion of the OMV-Iran deal at this point would, in our opinion, be more than unfortunate and should be rejected."
Dr. Daphne Frankl, a candidate for the Liberal Forum party, wrote, "Economic sanctions unfortunately have not always achieved the desired results in the past and often strengthen the wrong forces... Nevertheless, we are aware of the extraordinary situation in which Israel finds itself, and the longer no diplomatic solution can be found, the more necessary it will be to take more drastic measures."
The far right Freedom Party, whose leader Heinz-Christian Strache attended neo-Nazi events in the late 1980s, has aligned his party with the Iranian regime and vehemently opposes sanctions designed to force a suspension of the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.
The People's Party and the Freedom Party formed a coalition government in 2000 that prompted Israel to recall its ambassador.
