at the beginning of March, it was in the Tyrolean Alps is mild and Sunny and there was plenty of snow on the ground. Tourists from all over Europe came in droves to the mountains to enjoy the slopes and Après-Ski – from Germany, the UK and the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Iceland.
The business was booming significantly more than in the previous year. Tourism entrepreneurs, lured by targeted holidaymakers in the Region were afraid of the COVID-19-outbreak in the North of Italy.
Martina Büchling was aware of the looming danger of not aware, when she with her husband and two adult daughters from Germany arrived and at 8. March in the ski resort of Ischgl arrived.
Two weeks before the Grand Hotel Europe has been closed in Innsbruck, temporarily, after an Italian employee had been tested on reception of a positive effect on the Coronavirus. The Whole thing was, as an “isolated incident” and about the Virus since not spoken to. The 51-year-old Martina Büchling says they knew nothing about COVID-19 in the Paznaun valley, in the Ischgl lies: “We normally would not have passed.”
In the room is the accusation that the authorities had covered up the danger. Even if many details are not yet known, one thing is clear: Already in January and February, British and other European media reported about Corona cases in Tirol. On 1. In March, the Icelandic authorities put a warning on the Website for early warnings of the EU Commission, after 15 Icelandic visitors from Ischgl with Corona infections home were swept. private Corona: Attempted cover-up in Tirol?
Four days later, the government in Reykjavik Ischgl explained to the “risk area”. Innsbruck, responded with the note, the tourists would have the disease, probably on the return trip captured. Then a bartender in the popular Après-Ski has been tested Locally Kitzloch in Ischgl is positive. The Tyrolean Landessanitärrat then alleged: “A Transfer of the Coronavirus to the guests of the Bar is from a medical point of view rather unlikely.”
– Seeing eye in the disaster
Three days after the Corona-diagnosis of the bartender Martina Büchling shared a gondola lift with a young woman, who complained that the Kitzloch had been closed. When she came back to the Hotel, found the German surprised that the Bars were in the town of sealing, while in front of the Restaurants food was sold.
she wondered why a sign at the Lift and asked the people to keep distance from each other, with no one to put the call through. On the evening of 13. March finally, the hotel owner threw out the family completely unexpected. The authorities had decided to close the ski resort of Ischgl from the 14. To close March.
With Thousands of other bewildered tourists, who were suddenly expelled from their property, fled the Büchlings and drove through the night until they arrived in their home in the vicinity of Frankfurt.
Two days later the fever began. Martina was very sick, had a dry cough, muscle pain, and to have the feeling of “glass shards in the lungs”. Your sense of taste and smell were. There were “two weeks of hell,” she says, to die with “terror”. Now she is on the way to recovery. But she is angry.
she is one of around 4000 Tirol holidaymakers who want to join a class-action lawsuit of the Austrian consumer protection Association (VSV). She is convinced that the authorities, the risk was aware, long before the facts were known to the public.
VSV-Chairman Peter Kolba has filed with the public Prosecutor’s office. The Tyrolean authorities, he says, would be “a danger of mass infection have to be” or knowledge, known and yet, the ski resorts open. If that’s true, and whether this will lead to claims for compensation for Infected, it is necessary to check the Prosecutor’s office now.
Kolba believes that it had given both financial and political motives, a crash of the ski season delayed. “The economic reasons are obvious. You have to ask only once, what is to be implemented on a skiing trip in Ischgl. As you can imagine, that one says: ‘Well, we just need two more days.'”
A felt-from business and politics
tourism in Tirol is a significant source of income, more than a quarter of all Jobs in the industry. Kolba refers to the close Links between the tourism industry, especially the mighty cable car companies and the conservative Austrian people’s party (ÖVP). The ÖVP ruled in a coalition with the Greens – both the Federal state of Tyrol and the Republic of Austria.
So she met a week before the Coronavirus was discovered in a staff of the hotel Europe in Innsbruck – it is in this Hotel, Austria’s Federal Chancellor and ÖVP leader Sebastian Kurz, to the exclusion of the Public members of the eagle round. This group includes representatives of the largest Tyrolean companies, including cable car operators, hotel owners, and contractors. Together, they have donated to the ÖVP, a total of around one Million euros.
Shortly after this Meeting, the Items in the economy were elected to the chamber of Commerce Austria (WKÖ), which is the statutory interest representation of all Austrian companies. One of the leading candidates in the national chamber of Tyrol Franz Hörl, a Hotel and a rope was Lobbyist, Austrian member of Parliament in the Parliament in Vienna and the country of the chief of the Tyrolean economy, Federal government, the ÖVP parliamentary group in the chamber of Commerce. The economy, Federal takes around 13 million euros per year in membership fees from the tourism industry.
About a third of Hörls electorate depends on tourism. In the public eye, a SMS exchange between Hörl and the owner of the Kitzloch of 9 made it. March. Hörl requested sincerely, the closing Bar may, in order to avoid a premature end to the ski season – a Situation that would have meant for his supporters to serious financial losses.
Wiener should Determine – not Tyrolean
Even as the number of Coronavirus infections in Tirol increase, said Minister for health Bernhard Tilg (ÖVP) in a television interview in the ORF: “The authorities have done everything correctly.”
Similar to Tyrol’s country chief, Günther Platter, the up today. On request he told DW that many countries were in an “exceptional situation”, “the was still a few weeks ago unimaginable”. He acknowledged, however: “With the Knowledge of today, the authorities had taken certain decisions differently.” And the upcoming elections in the Federal economic chamber (WKÖ) were not affected by the beginning of March, the decision to end the ski season in the Paznaun valley? Platter emphasized that he could “exclude completely”.
VSV-chief Peter Kolba believes that neither the Tyrolean authorities of the Tyrolean public Prosecutor’s office will investigate the affair in the centre of Ischgl, in the Paznaun valley in earnest. He insists that the case will be handed over to the economic and corruption Prosecutor’s office in Vienna.
And Martina Büchling? You would like to remember the Positive family holiday. “We had a good time together. And at least I have infected anyone.”
author: Kim Traill, Stefan scho cher (Vienna / back)
Union at the height of the flight – AfD with the worst value for the past two years, Green lose FOCUS Online/Wochit Union in the height of flight of the AfD with the worst value for the past two years, Green lose
*The post “Angry Ischgl-holiday Tirol attack with mass action” is published by Deutsche Welle. Contact with the executives here.
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