Vienna - Austria's Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer massively offended Austria's parliamentarians when joking about their work habits during a recent trip to Argentina. On Wednesday, the Social Democrat chancellor's office issued an apology.

"Senators in Austria are rarely found still at work by 4 pm," Austrian media quoted Gusenbauer as saying at a meeting in Argentina, much to the chagrin of Austrian politicians.

An outraged Helmut Kritzinger, president of the Bundesrat, Austria's upper house which has only very limited powers, said the remark only showed the chancellor's own shortcomings.

Both opposition and Gusenbauer's conservative coalition partners lambasted the incident as a first-rate diplomatic scandal.

Even Gusenbauer's own party colleagues were not amused. Their MPs were working between 12 and 15 hours per day, they said, so who was the chancellor talking about?

In an attempt to smooth ruffled feathers, Gusenbauer issued an apology on Wednesday.

"Owing to many years of experience as an MP, the chancellor knows how much work and commitment to high performance lies behind an MP's work. He is therfore surprised that such a debate could be triggered by a funny remark," his spokesman said. (dpa)