The Innsbruck bidding for the Olympic Games 2026 is once again gaining headwind.The question for the referendum on 15 May is as followsOctober is “illegal”for the constitutional lawyer Heinz Mayer.
The expert came to this conclusion in a report commissioned by the opposition party Liste Fritz.The Fritz list now wants to table an urgent request for a new question.
“Questions for referendums must be clear and unambiguous and must not steer the voter’s will in any particular direction,”said Mayer at a press conference in Innsbruck on Wednesday.The question “Should the Province of Tyrol offer a self-confident offer for sustainable, regionally adapted and economically and ecologically responsible Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Innsbruck-Tyrol 2026?
The question contains several positive evaluations – without mentioning any possible negative consequences of the Olympic Winter Games.This is not to deny the intention of manipulation.In summary, it should be noted that the question is “one-sidedly judgmental, manipulative and therefore illegal and unconstitutional”, wrote Mayer in his report.
The next step in the Fritz list is now an urgent request to be submitted to the Tyrolean parliament,”in order to give the black-green state government a very last chance to repair what still needs to be repaired,”said list Fritz clubwoman Andrea Haselwanter-Schneider.The opposition party wants to call on the government to formulate a new,”legally compliant” question and to postpone the referendum until a later date.
If the government does not comply, the Fritz list will consider further steps – one of them could be to challenge the result at the Constitutional Court (VfGH).If the VfGH should then follow Mayer’s argumentation and declare the result null and void, a new referendum would have to be held, the constitutional expert said.Because the Landtag had in the meeting of 30.The Council decided on 13 March that the decision of the population should be accepted as binding.However, with possible deadlines set by the IOC, it could become scarce.
According to Mayer, however, it is also possible to change the question now and yet the referendum can still be held on 15 March.I do not think that this is impossible, but I see it critically,”said the expert.
The NGO “mehr demokratie!” had also already announced that it would file a mass complaint with the VfGH, since the question was “manipulative”. 200 declarations of support from the population were necessary for this.Haselwanter-Schneider had not signed yet, she said, because she wanted to wait for the result of the report, but she could “very well imagine to sign it”.