Raiffeisenbank Bank International (RBI), Austria’s second-largest bank and asset finance provider across Central and Eastern Europe, has postponed its exit from the Russian market, even as it faces mounting pressure from European regulators and the US government.
Being the largest Western banking institution operating in Russia, RBI plays a crucial role by offering vital financial services to numerous companies within the nation.
Then Austria should ask itself, if the EU is the right place for it. Currently Russia is an adversary to EU interests and Austria is undermining the EU, by operating as an entry-point for russian influence, politically, economically and in regards to intelligence.
There is good reason to believe that Austria helped the ex Wirecard CEO flee to Russia with its own intelligence units.
Too bad that they also align with Hungary, Poland and the other reactionary “Visegard” states. Otherwise it would be an interesting experiment to see how long Austria would last economically when leaving the EU and how fast they would be willing to end being a russian agent in the EU.
Please don’t give them ideas, there’s enough populist politicians who would immediately follow up on that idea with disastrous results.
You are right that there’s a distressing amount of “Russia-affection” in Austria, especially on the right side of the political spectrum and in some areas of the industry.
Some of that has historical roots, because due to the neutrality Austria has long been the place where the two sides of the cold war have met and had a neutral ground. While Austria has been (and is) definitely “West” aligned (whatever that vague term means), this means that there has been and is more contact to Russia than pure geography would suggest. Note that I’m not trying to “excuse” it, but just describe some of the reasons.
I am all for keeping diplomatic channels open and especially trying to reintegrate Russia post war and post Putin. But in the case of Austria the direct influence on politics and the government is a critical problem, as it is undermining the country and the EU as a whole.