Social media calls to violence trigger Halloween riots in Vienna
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Vienna spent Halloween night managing a police deployment that matched the scale of the unrest, as social media calls to violence led to riots and an attempt to set a police vehicle on fire with flammable liquid. The violence follows a week of political friction, though the focus remains on the streets this morning.
Business interests and environmental policy have collided over the national climate goal. The Chamber of Commerce and the Federation of Austrian Industries are reportedly flooding MPs' inboxes with mass emails to torpedo the targets, a tactic that coincides with widespread public dissatisfaction with the current climate law. Meanwhile, the economic data is contradictory: the national debt burden is falling, but the number of companies filing for bankruptcy is moving in the other direction.
A new social welfare reform has been met with the usual criticism that it balances the books at the expense of the poorest. Elsewhere, an investigation is underway into allegations of fraud during the Serbian election held in the capital, proving that local logistics can sometimes export distant political headaches.