In a time of the year called “Sommerloch” (summer doldrums) by German speakers, Austria’s climate minister, Leonore Gewessler, who is also a member of the Green Party in the Parliament, has offered people an unconventional deal: get a tattoo and receive a free rail pass for a year.
She announced the opportunity while attending a music festival in the town of St Pölten, on 19 and 20 August. On the premises of the festival, a tent was set up to offer a free rail pass, valid for one year, to the first three people to get the word “Klimaticket” (Climate ticket) tattooed on each day of the festival. Above the tent’s entrance a banner read “Aktion geht unter die Haut” (Action that gets under your skin).
For both days, the offers were exhausted, with 6 people taking up the deal over the course of weekend. The MP also revealed her own tattoo at the festival, reading “Gewessler takes the lead”, according to the Telegraph, and walked among the crowds passing temporary tattoo stickers of the same Klimaticket to festival goers.
According to Austrian newspaper Salzburger Nachrichten, another 30 people tattooed their skin in exchange for the Klimaticket during the Electric Love festival in July. The Klimaticket, a yearly rail pass costing €1,095, was introduced in Austria in 2021, in an attempt to encourage more people to chose public transport over driving across the country.
Gewessler’s offer has received accusations of taking advantage of people who cannot afford the still expensive climate ticket and would thus offer their skin as a canvas for advertising in exchange. Editor-in-chief of the Viennese weekly newspaper Falter, Florian Klenk called the campaign “cynicism and mockery of those who have no money and therefore put their skin on the market”, while MP for the liberal NEOS party, Henrike Brandstötter, said that “Offering people money for putting advertising under their skin reveals an unacceptable view of humanity from a government minister.”
Despite the backlash, Gewessler defended her offer, saying that the campaign has been “carried out with great care” and only people over the age of 18 are allowed to get the tattoos that, moreover, are only given during daylight. “The people who get the tattoos mostly already have some”, she concluded her defence of the deal.
