Austria halts sale of two mountain peaks

Jun 14, 2011, 14:07 GMT

Vienna - Austria put the sale of two Alpine peaks on hold Tuesday after politicians protested the move, the country's real estate administration agency confirmed. The agency has been offering the Grosser Kinigat and Rosskopf mountains in Tyrol for a total of 121,000 euros (176,000 dollars).

'Privatizing mountain peaks does not make sense,' Economy Minister Reinhold Mitterlehner said in a statement.

He proposed that the mountains, each around 2,600 metres tall, should be transferred to a public entity, such as Tyrol province.

The provincial governor blasted the real estate agency over the project. 'This embarassing discussion hurts Tyrol as a tourism destination,' Guenther Platter was quoted as saying by the daily Tiroler Tageszeitung.

The Alps are one of the most important assets of Austrian's tourism and leisure industry, which accounts for 15 per cent of the country's gross domestic product.

German software firm Ashampoo confirmed media reports that it wants to take up the offer, in exchange for renaming the peaks Ashampoo I and Ashampoo II.

'We are not giving up yet,' chief executive Rolf Hilchner said, adding that his firm would donate the real estate to the village of Kartitsch near the mountains, in exchange for the naming rights.