Austrian energy giant OMV takes heat for 22b-euro deal with Iran - Haaretz

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Mon., December 17, 2007 Tevet 8, 5768

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		Iranian workers at an oil refinery near Tehran last month. (AP)

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Last update - 08:58 16/12/2007

Austrian energy giant OMV takes heat for 22b-euro deal with Iran

By Benjamin Weinthal

Tags: Austria, energy deal, Iran

VIENNA - A major deal between Tehran and an Austrian conglomerate partly owned by the government has elicited a wave of protest in Austria amid fears Iran will use the profits to finance its nuclear program.

The Vienna-based Stop the Bomb organization launched a campaign last week calling for Austrian energy giant OMV to cancel the 22-billion-euro deal with Iran it initialed in April. Under the agreement, the largest energy deal in the European Union's history, OMV would develop Iranian gas and oil fields along the Persian Gulf.

One participant in the campaign, Nobel Prize for Literature laureate Elfriede Jelinek, told Haaretz: "We should not do deals with totalitarian regimes that admit that their goal is to destroy another state" - a reference to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's frequent calls to wipe Israel off the map. She said the new American intelligence estimate, which holds that Iran has ceased its nuclear weapons program, does not alter her view.

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The OMV deal enjoys broad support among Austria's political class, from the Greens to the Social Democrats and People's Party. A spokesman for Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer said the government "will not actively intervene" in the economic activities of "a private company."

But the fact the government is OMV's largest shareholder (with a 31.5 percent stake) has caused many public figures to demand that the firm sever its ties with Iran - especially because, as economist Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy noted, it is rare for any entity holding more than 25 percent of a company to refuse to intervene in its affairs. Clawson added that OMV's investment in Iran's energy sector would significantly increase the money Tehran has available for its nuclear program.

Security experts also argue that the OMV precedent will encourage other foreign companies to sign similar deals with Iran, despite EU leaders' call last Friday for tighter sanctions against Iran. Austria, after all, is an EU member, yet an Iranian delegation visited its parliament just last week to discuss closer economic ties.

"Doing business with a regime that threatens to liquidate Israel, that is involved in violating human rights on a daily basis and that is also working to develop a nuclear bomb, is completely unacceptable to those who view themselves as democrats," argued Stop the Bomb spokeswoman Simone Dina Hartman.

An OMV spokesman responded that his company "is not responsible for the [Iranian] regime's political positions."

Following a September demonstration against the deal in Vienna, OMV distributed a letter to its workers justifying the contract. Ferdinand Nemesch, the workers' representative on OMV's board, insisted that all the company's contracts are being "reexamined," including the massive Nabucco project - a $6 billion deal to construct a natural gas pipeline from the Middle East (including Iran) to the EU, reducing Europe's dependence on Russian gas. OMV is one of the firms slated to build the pipeline, for which a contract was signed last year. Nabucco is due to open in 2009 or 2010.

Ironically, some of OMV's public relations, including on the Iranian issue, are being handled by the editor of the Vienna-based Jewish newspaper Nu, Peter Menasse, who also owns a PR firm. Menasse insisted that his contract with OMV is small - a few tens of thousands of euros - and that anything of a "political nature" is handled by OMV's in-house PR department. But he added that while he "respects" Israel's view of Iran, he prefers the "outstretched hand and open door" approach.

In contrast, Ariel Muzicant, head of Austria's Jewish community, wrote recently on the Web site www.juedische.at that the country's Jews favor a total embargo on Iran. The site's editor, Samuel Laster, added that the deal is liable to result in an Iranian bomb partly financed by Austria.

Gusenbauer's spokesman termed the charge that the government is helping a state that wants to destroy Israel "completely absurd." But Hartman at Stop the Bomb disagreed. "Austria was ready to support the Nazi regime in 1938, and it seems that now it's ready to support the anti-Semitic regime in Iran," she said.

Related articles:

Israeli envoys to U.S. to argue Iran still trying to make bomb

Austrian chancellor, in Israel: Iran must stop enrichment of uranium

The German connection

Report: Germany expelled Iran diplomat who sought nuke parts

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1.	Not Austrian and not to Russia.	11:01	\|	Vital	16/12/07

2.	Israel should nuke Vienna and Berlin	11:22	\|	Harry Trumann	16/12/07

3.	Haaretz you are distributing nonsense	12:12	\|	Kris	16/12/07

4.	austria	12:29	\|	rolfkitty	16/12/07

5.	we are talking about four stupid Jews, that is it	12:39	\|	Austrian	16/12/07

6.	# 4 you are really considering	12:47	\|	Kris	16/12/07

7.	for #2	12:50	\|	yehuda	16/12/07

8.	The Austrian issue	13:09	\|	Roland	16/12/07

9.	Out of proportion	13:23	\|	Axel	16/12/07

10.	# 4 rolfkitty	13:29	\|	Axel	16/12/07

11.	I wonder...	14:03	\|	Sarah	16/12/07

12.	THE AUSTRIANS WILL NOT GIVE A SECOND	14:14	\|	Robert	16/12/07

13.	Then stop doing business with Israel too	14:32	\|	Jasem	16/12/07

14.	To 5 Austrian	14:35	\|	Vital	16/12/07

15.	Berlin and Vienna united against Israel	17:19	\|	Jonathan S	16/12/07

16.	# 9 Axel...while I do appreciate your insight	18:51	\|	Lynn	16/12/07

17.	# 16 lynn	19:13	\|	Axel	16/12/07

18.	Comment, please	23:48	\|	Axel	16/12/07

19.	Final question	00:50	\|	Axel	17/12/07

20.	# 2 Harry Trumann	02:54	\|	JJ	17/12/07

21.	China will be glad to do it	02:59	\|	JJ	17/12/07

22.	Lynn, very reasonable approach.	03:46	\|	joebhed	17/12/07

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