Nepp defends cooperation with Berlin AfD

Vienna FPÖ leader Dominik Nepp has defended cooperation with the Berlin branch of Germany’s AfD, saying the parties share positions on issues including school inclusion. He made the comments in an interview with ORF Vienna broadcast on Saturday.

Unlike FPÖ federal leader Herbert Kickl, who distanced himself from the AfD during an ORF interview on Monday, Nepp said he wanted a lasting partnership with the Berlin party and joint political responses. He visited Berlin last week and said both sides faced shared problems including debt and Islamism.

Nepp described a joint declaration adopted by the parties as “reasonable and not far-right”. Asked about his red lines, he said he drew them where someone committed crimes, no longer accepted the rule of law or rejected democracy. He added that he had never encountered such a case within the AfD.

Nepp says school inclusion has failed

Nepp also endorsed the AfD’s criticism of inclusion in schools, in which children with and without disabilities learn together in the same class. “Inclusion in schools has failed in Vienna,” he said.

He attributed the problems to a lack of teaching staff and overburdened teachers, saying this justified a debate about how to provide more individual support for children. Nepp said he was not calling for complete and permanent separation, but for children to receive separate support in some areas. He said the AfD held the same view.

Nepp, a Vienna city councillor without executive responsibilities, said the city needed a political change of direction. He described his own party as the “only force” capable of delivering it, citing education, healthcare and social policy. He claimed that some classes had hardly any German speakers, that patients had to wait months for appointments and that social funds were going to the wrong people.

Nepp renews call for remigration councillor

Nepp again called for a dedicated city councillor for “remigration”, although residence law and deportations are federal rather than city responsibilities. He also repeated his call for thousands of Syrians in Vienna to be deported, saying: “Assad is history. These people have to leave the country.”

He said Austrian citizens with a migration background would not be targets of the policy. “Why should I deport Austrian citizens with a migration background? They already vote for us,” Nepp said, citing Austrian citizens of Turkish and former Yugoslav backgrounds and referring to APA post-election surveys.

Discussing the minimum-income system criticised by the FPÖ, Nepp cited annual additional costs of 3.2 billion euros. He said commissioned experts had calculated the figure, which also included costs in education, healthcare and infrastructure.

FPÖ leader targets left-wing NGOs

Asked where he would make further savings, Nepp first named “funding for left-wing NGOs”. He said ending such funding would be one of his first actions if he became mayor, accusing the organisations of being dominated by SPÖ members, making life difficult through their dealings with criminals who had come to Austria and working with a transgender lobby that he said sought to destroy families and traditions.

On climate change and measures to help people cope with rising heat, Nepp proposed voting out what he called “the climate change made by the SPÖ in Vienna”. He said various construction projects over the past 10 to 15 years could have been planned more intelligently, naming Seestadt Aspern and Vienna Central Station as examples.