Thomas Drozda

Thomas Drozda (May 2016)

Thomas Drozda (born July 24, 1965 in Piberbach , Upper Austria ) is an Austrian politician ( SPÖ ) and member of the Austrian National Council . From 2016 to 2017 he was Minister of the Chancellery in the Federal Government of Kern . From September 2018 until his resignation in September 2019, he was federal manager of the SPÖ.

Life

Drozda studied business administration and economics at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz . After completing his studies, he worked in 1991 as the managing director of the “however-publishing house” of the socialist youth in Vienna and shortly afterwards switched to the department for economic studies at the Oesterreichische Nationalbank .

In 1993 he moved to the cabinet of Federal Chancellor Franz Vranitzky as an economic policy advisor , where he also took over the field of art and culture in 1996. He remained in the same position under Chancellor Viktor Klima until 1998.

At the end of 1998, Drozda was appointed commercial director at the Burgtheater in Vienna , where he implemented restructuring and repositioning measures. In 2008 he was entrusted with the position of General Director of the United Theaters in Vienna .

From 2007 to 2014 Drozda was a member of the Board of Trustees of Austrian Broadcasting Corporation .

On May 18, 2016, he was appointed a member of the government by Federal President Heinz Fischer at the suggestion of Christian Kern . As Federal Minister in the Federal Chancellery , he was responsible for art and culture , the constitution and the media from May 25, 2016 to December 18, 2017, when the core federal government was dissolved .

After the 2017 National Council election , Drozda, who became a minister as a lateral entrant, entered the National Council for the first time.

In September 2018, after Christian Kern's resignation as SPÖ chairman, his successor Pamela Rendi-Wagner appointed him federal manager. He resigned from this position after the SPÖ had to accept its worst result in the 2019 National Council election with around 22%.

Controversy

At the end of October 2018 it became known that Drozda had, contrary to the agreement, taken a picture that Drozda had lent him for his office in the Chancellery by the Austrian Gallery Belvedere to his office in the SPÖ party headquarters after leaving the federal government. The Federal Chancellery, as a contractual partner of the ÖG Belvedere, also investigated the alleged improper treatment and transport of the picture. In August 2018, the ÖG Belvedere urged the return of the picture without success. After a great media response, the picture could finally be picked up by the ÖG Belvedere on October 30, 2018.

According to the research platform Addendum, Drozda is said to have been aware of falsified accounting records and tax evasion by Burgtheater GmbH , which he was managing director at the time, in the period from 2004 to 2008 and is thus also involved in the Burgtheater scandal that became publicly known from January 2014. Drozda rejects the allegations under threat of civil lawsuits.

In his role as General Director of the United Theaters in Vienna , Drozda was criticized several times. After employees went to court “because of precarious employment”, the United Bühnen Wien paid salaries of 385,000 euros to 55 employees in 2016. In the period between 2009 and 2012, the United Bühnen Wien paid executive employees bonuses of EUR 0.66 million without defining clearly measurable target agreements in return, as the Vienna City Audit Office criticized in a 2013 control report. The premiums were criticized as "inappropriately high", the criteria which led to the payment of the bonuses as "unambitious", "not precisely quantified" and the "documentation of the goals achieved" as "not always easy to understand". The Court of Auditors also criticized the fact that Drozda himself was paid a bonus for the entire year as managing director in 2008, although he had only started his position in the middle of the year.

Web links

Commons : Thomas Drozda  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Thomas Drozda in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna
• Thomas Drozda on the website of the Austrian Parliament
• Thomas Drozda at www.meineabektiven.at

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Drozda becomes the new SPÖ federal manager . In: news.ORF.at . September 25, 2018 ( orf.at [accessed September 25, 2018]).
2. ^ ^{A b} Federal Minister for Art and Culture, Constitution and Media. ( Memento of the original from August 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Short biography of Thomas Drozda on the website of the Federal Chancellery , accessed on August 18, 2016. 
3. ^ Thomas Drozda new Minister of Culture. In: ooe. ORF .at, May 17, 2016, accessed on August 18, 2016.
4. ↑ "In breach of contract, improperly": Chancellery examines the cause of the painting . In: The press . October 30, 2018 ( diepresse.com [accessed November 5, 2018]).
5. ↑ Belvedere: Taking the painting to the SPÖ headquarters was not coordinated . October 29, 2018 ( derstandard.at ).
6. ^ SPÖ returned the Belvedere picture . October 30, 2018 ( orf.at [accessed November 5, 2018]).
7. ^ Burgtheater scandal, 1st act. In: addendum.org. November 17, 2018, accessed November 19, 2018 . 
8. ↑ Ernst Sittinger: Burgtheater scandal: Public prosecutor stops investigations for the most part. In: kleinezeitung.at. December 2, 2017. Retrieved November 19, 2018 . 
9. ↑ Die Presse: Vereinigte Bühnen had to pay more. Retrieved January 1, 2019 . 
10. ↑ ^{a b} CONTROL OFFICE OF THE CITY OF VIENNA: Vereinigte Bühnen Wien Ges.mbH, examination of the conduct. Retrieved January 1, 2019 .