Sebastian Kurz sworn in as Austrian chancellor

Bloomberg

Sebastian Kurz was sworn in as Austria’s chancellor by President Alexander Van der Bellen, heading a new alliance of conservatives and environmentalists that now has to figure out how to fund its ambitious climate goals.
Kurz, 33, is breaking new ground in Europe by forging a coalition between his People’s Party and the Greens. Their programme combines Kurz’s trademark hard line on migration and deficits with ambitious plans by Green party leader Werner Kogler, 58, to make Austria climate neutral by 2040.
Kurz’s new finance minister, Gernot Bluemel, and Green “super minister”
for infrastructure, Leonore Gewessler, will now have to thrash out how to fund the de-carbonisation of the Austrian economy while at the same time lowering taxes and keep the budget balanced. The groups’ 328-page programme spells out income tax cuts but leaves it to a “task force” of experts to design a new “eco-social” federal revenue model by 2022.
“Reducing the tax burden or reaching climate neutrality by 2040 are costly plans,” said Inga Fechner, an economist at ING Group in Germany. “The budgeting of the government’s plans is not yet entirely clear.”