Pühringer accuses Vienna of lacking heat protection plan

Vienna Green Party leader Judith Pühringer has criticised Mayor Michael Ludwig for failing to introduce a city heat protection plan, ORF reported after its “Wien heute” summer interview. She said Vienna should plant more trees rather than rely on air conditioning.

Pühringer said the summer’s record temperatures, including at night, had highlighted the Greens’ core issues. The party is currently polling at 17 percent, 1.5 percentage points above its result in the last election.

“I believe it was a summer that opened all our eyes,” Pühringer said. She pointed to pupils and teachers gathering around a single fan, parents worrying about how to cool babies and young children, and the number of emergency service call-outs during the first heatwave in June.

She accused Vienna’s city government of responding to the heat without a plan. “We heard nothing about the heat from Mayor Ludwig,” she said, adding that this showed he no longer recognised the signs of the times.

The Greens had presented a heat protection plan, Pühringer said. In the long term, Vienna needed more trees, which she called “the city’s best air conditioners”.

Greens seek differentiated migration policy

On migration, Pühringer said the Greens needed to provide differentiated answers and solutions. The party should distinguish between measures against radicalisation and responses to migration, which she described as part of everyday life.

She said education was a key area, beginning in kindergartens, along with support for people entering the labour market.

Criticism of social cuts

Pühringer also criticised the Social Democratic Party over cuts to minimum income support and addiction services. She said the most vulnerable people were often being abandoned, including those with chronic addiction disorders and people with disabilities.

She argued that there were many possible sources of funding, citing the planned St Marx event hall as an example. The project would cost 215 million euros, she said, adding that Vienna did not need an event hall in that form.

Call for affordable housing

Pühringer also called for affordable housing and warned that many people were losing the certainty of being able to find affordable rents in Vienna. She said the Social Democrats were in danger of squandering the legacy of “Red Vienna”.

She also called for the protection of municipal housing. Referring to a senior politician allegedly discussing the sale of 100,000 municipal apartments in a wine cellar, Pühringer described it as a political taboo violation. She said there would be no “backroom politics, wine-cellar politics” or politics that was contemptuous of women under her leadership.