Söder and Mattle sideline transit dispute at Tyrolean ÖVP rally

Bavarian Premier Markus Söder joined Tyrolean People’s Party (ÖVP) leader Anton Mattle at a rally in Innsbruck on Saturday, where disputes over transit traffic received little attention. The event was intended to build momentum for Tyrol’s autumn 2027 state election, ORF reported.

About 1,000 delegates and party supporters attended the event at the Innsbruck Congress, held under the slogan “A new beginning for Tyrol”. Söder was the main guest, while Vorarlberg Governor Markus Wallner and South Tyrol Governor Arno Kompatscher also attended.

Mattle again emphasised Tyrol’s independence from the federal party. He also repeated his call for asylum seekers to be allowed to work from their first day in the country, saying his position differed substantially from that of the federal ÖVP.

Söder compared the Tyrolean party’s new membership model, which allows people to join the state party without automatically joining the federal party, to the CSU in Bavaria. He described the CSU and the Tyrolean ÖVP as part of a “bourgeois community of values” centred on freedom, family, achievement and security, and called for support for the democratic centre.

Transit traffic was touched on only briefly. Mattle said solutions should be developed jointly. Söder expressed cautious optimism that Germany would decide the route of the northern approach to the Brenner Base Tunnel, saying he was sure a decision would come in the foreseeable future. He denied that Bavaria was holding back rail expansion.

However, the source reported that a possible start to construction of a new high-speed line in Bavaria remains distant, with fundamental decisions and secured funding still lacking. The German transport portfolio was held for many years by CSU ministers from Bavaria, from Peter Ramsauer in October 2009 until Andreas Scheuer left office at the end of 2021.