Tyrol Greens condemn planned social assistance reform

Tyrol’s Green Party has criticised the federal government’s planned social assistance reform, saying it could put people at risk of poverty and families under greater pressure. The party’s social affairs spokesperson, Zeliha Arslan, called on Tyrol’s state government to make fuller use of its powers to combat poverty, ORF reported.

The federal government, made up of the ÖVP, SPÖ and NEOS, recently presented the main points of the reform. They include stricter rules for recipients considered able to work and new requirements for child benefit rates. The government says the changes aim to bring the different rules in Austria’s states into closer alignment. The proposed legislation is due to take effect on 1 January.

Arslan described the reform as unfair in social policy, short-sighted economically and dangerous for society. She said it treated people receiving minimum income support as though they did not want to work. According to Arslan, about 70 per cent of adult recipients supplement income from work, unemployment benefits or pensions with additional support.

She argued that people who cannot cover their living costs despite working face an income problem, not a motivation problem. The government was instead increasing the use of sanctions, she said.

Arslan also criticised the planned changes to family benefits and child rates. The government proposes a nationwide framework with minimum and maximum rates. Payments for the first child and from the fifth child onwards would be set nationally, while states would retain discretion over rates for the second to fourth children. The rate would be lower from the fifth child.

Arslan warned that the changes could put larger families under strain, arguing that children’s needs do not diminish because their parents are poor or they have several siblings. She also criticised the SPÖ, saying it had promised a child guarantee but was supporting a reform that could further pressure families at risk of poverty.

Arslan said a recent reform of minimum income support in Tyrol had already introduced stricter rules that particularly affected larger families. She urged Tyrol’s social affairs councillor, Eva Pawlata of the SPÖ, to oppose further cuts and use the state’s available powers to fight poverty.