Erwin Pröll (born 24 December 1946, in Ziersdorf-Radlbrunn), is an Austrian conservative politician (

ÖVP The Austrian People's Party (german: Österreichische Volkspartei , ÖVP ) is a Christian-democratic and liberal-conservative political party in Austria. Since December 2021, the party has been led provisionally by Karl Nehammer. It is curr ...

). From 1992 to 2017, he was the Governor of Lower Austria. He was born in Radlbrunn,

Lower Austria Lower Austria (german: Niederösterreich; Austro-Bavarian: ''Niedaöstareich'', ''Niedaestareich'') is one of the nine states of Austria, located in the northeastern corner of the country. Since 1986, the capital of Lower Austria has been Sankt ...

and after obtaining his

Matura or its translated terms (''Mature'', ''Matur'', , , , , , ) is a Latin name for the secondary school exit exam or "maturity diploma" in various European countries, including Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cz ...

at Tulln he studied at the University of Natural Resources (BOKU), Vienna.

Political life

The transfer of the regional administration of

from

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Sankt Pölten Sankt Pölten (; Central Bavarian: ''St. Pödn''), mostly abbreviated to the official name St. Pölten, is the capital and largest city of the State of Lower Austria in northeast Austria, with 55,538 inhabitants as of 1 January 2020. St. Pölte ...

took place during his administration. Pröll is seen as a supporter of a Grand Coalition between the ÖVP and Social Democratic Party (SPÖ). In the year 2000 he was still a supporter of the "black-blue" coalition (ÖVP with the Freedom Party (FPÖ)), but two years later argued against such an arrangement. Pröll also has a good relationship with Viennese mayor Michael Häupl (SPÖ). Great interest was aroused in Europe when he proposed a tax on mobile phone masts in the state of Lower Austria. Together with the SPÖ he suggested legally regulating mobile phone transmitters, with the aim of reducing the overall number. At the same time the state planned to set up a local telecommunications infrastructure by means of a

Wireless LAN A wireless LAN (WLAN) is a wireless computer network that links two or more devices using wireless communication to form a local area network (LAN) within a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, campus, or office building ...

. After an agreement with the mobile radio companies, the taxation was not realized. The agreement in fact was used as an example for other regions. In 2006 he hosted a conference with EU politicians over

subsidiarity Subsidiarity is a principle of social organization that holds that social and political issues should be dealt with at the most immediate or local level that is consistent with their resolution. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' defines subsidi ...

. Pröll is married with four children. He is the uncle of Josef Pröll, former Austrian Vice Chancellor and Minister of Finance. He is imperial Knight of Honor of the Order of St. George. The magazine ''

Falter ''Falter'' ( en, italic=yes, Butterfly) is a weekly Austrian news magazine published in Vienna. History and profile Established in 1977, ''Falter'' is published weekly on Wednesdays. The magazine was founded by Walter Martin Kienreich. The pu ...

'' in 2002 reported the response by regional party secretary Ernst Strasser to criticism of Pröll's confession that he had only ever managed to finish one book,

Karl May Karl Friedrich May ( , ; 25 February 1842 – 30 March 1912) was a German author. He is best known for his 19th century novels of fictitious travels and adventures, set in the American Old West with Winnetou and Old Shatterhand as main pro ...

's cowboy novel ''Der Schatz im Silbersee'' (''The Treasure of Silver Lake''): "People like that, at least it shows the governor isn't a know-all." In September 2014, in an interview with the newspaper ''

Kurier ''Kurier'' is a German-language daily newspaper based in Vienna, Austria. History and profile ''Kurier'' was founded as ''Wiener Kurier'' by the United States Forces in Austria (USFA) in 1945, during the Allied occupation after World War II. ...

'', he denied any interest in being a candidate for the Presidential election due in 2016, saying the idea left him cold: "My life plan is different". Reports in April 2015, however, suggested that he had sounded out the idea with his staff.

References

External links

*
Erwin Pröll at the website of the Lower Austrian Government

{{DEFAULTSORT:Proll, Erwin 1946 births Living people Governors of Lower Austria (after 1918) Grand Crosses with Star and Sash of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna alumni