An Austrian citizens council has redistributed the 25 million euro inheritance of pro-tax advocate Marlene Engelhorn to 77 social and climate organisations. Image source: Jan Zappner / re:publica, via Flickr.
An Austrian panel tasked with redistributing the 25-million-euro ($40-million) inheritance of pro-tax advocate Marlene Engelhorn has finalised their list of recipients.
Engelhorn inherited millions in 2022 following the death of her grandmother Traudl Engelhorn-Vechiatto, whose wealth was estimated by Forbes at 4.2 billion USD (3.3 billion euro; $6.29 billion).
The Austro-German heiress set up the citizens council earlier this year after announcing her intent to give away the bulk of her inheritance.
“If politicians don’t do their job and redistribute, then I have to redistribute my wealth myself,” she said in January.
The 50-person panel, aged 17 to 85, was selected by a pollster to represent the Austrian public.
From March to June, the panel members were paid to meet in Salzburg to decide how the money should be distributed “in the interests of society as a whole” without any intervention on Engelhorn’s part.
On Tuesday 18 June, the panel said the money will go to 77 organisations who fight poverty and work to improve environmental protection, education, integration, health, and affordable housing in Austria.
Over several years, the organisations selected will receive donations that range from 40,000 euros (approximately $64,500) to 1.6 million euros ($2.5 million).
The largest amount was allocated to the Austrian Nature Conservation Federation.
Two of the four donations of more than a million euros will go to left-wing think-tank Momentum Institute and Attac Austria, which opposes neoliberal economic policy and “deregulated financial markets”.
Panel member Elisabeth Klein said in a statement the organisations were chosen in line with the objective to support “a fairer distribution of wealth, more transparency and reporting on that issue and better data on very large accumulations of wealth”.
Engelhorn, who did not participate in Tuesday’s press conference, said in a statement, “A large part of my inherited wealth, which elevated me to a position of power simply by virtue of my birth, contradicting every democratic principle, has now been redistributed in accordance with democratic values.”
