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AUSTRIAN CITIZENSHIP

What are Austria’s Social Democratic Party’s plans to ease citizenship rules?

During a weekend party event, Austria's centre-left SPÖ presented their defence of a 'modern citizenship law' in Vienna. Here is what they are asking for.

Published: 7 November 2022 17:09 CET
Updated: 26 December 2022 14:09 CET
What are Austria's Social Democratic Party's plans to ease citizenship rules?

Over the weekend, the centre-left party presented a ‘Charter of Democracy’ demanding a “modern” citizenship law. During an SPÖ Vienna political event, the red party presented the document, which said Austria has one of the “most restrictive naturalisation laws in Europe”.

“It mainly excludes financially weaker groups,” the document added.

The debate was raised by Vienna Mayor Michael Ludwig (not for the first time) as he said that the democratic process needs to be reshaped – and that the situation in Austria could be improved.

READ ALSO: What measures against foreigners is Austria’s far-right trying to take?

“Many people who live here are not allowed to vote because they do not have Austrian citizenship”, Ludwig said, according to public broadcaster ORF. The mayor also reiterated his position on Twitter.

“The struggle for universal suffrage was at the centre of social democracy’s political activities for many years. Today, democracy is globally contested as never before. The situation in Austria is also in need of improvement,” he said

“Many people who live here are not allowed to vote. The right to vote is, in fact, linked to citizenship. As a federal state, #Vienna cannot change this by law. Therefore, we demand a modern citizenship law. It should make political participation easier, he added.”

What does the SPÖ want to change?

Firstly, the Viennese SPÖ wants to lower the financial requirements for citizenship. Currently, applicants need to show proof of €933 in net monthly income (after deduction of all fixed costs). However, Ludwig told Austrian media that the amount is unattainable for groups that “keep things running” such as care workers or cleaning staff. 

READ ALSO: How foreigners can get fast-track citizenship in Austria

He didn’t propose any specific income, but said that the current rules are “socially unjust” and that a reform would have to impose a “realistically achievable” amount. 

Additionally, Ludwig defended that the waiting period to apply for naturalisation be reduced from ten years of legal residence to five years. Currently, several factors (including being married to an Austrian or holding EU citizenship) already shorten the waiting period.

According to the SPÖ Vienna, every child born in Austria should automatically receive Austrian citizenship at birth if at least one parent is legally resident in Austria for five years. Currently, the child needs to have at least one Austrian parent to be entitled to citizenship.

The party also wants to give third-country nationals the same voting rights as EU citizens in Austria. Citizens of the European Union are entitled to vote in local and district elections, as per EU law. The SPÖ wants to extend those rights to foreigners from outside of the bloc as well.

Will there be any changes?

The Austrian People’s Party ÖVP and far right FPÖ party sharply criticised the mayor’s statements on Saturday. “The current demands of the Viennese SPÖ to ease the citizenship and voting rights are completely irresponsible and must therefore be clearly rejected,” said ÖVP Vienna party leader Karl Mahrer in a statement.

Integration Minister Susanne Raab (ÖVP) said the citizenship rules would not be softened. “Citizenship was a valuable asset and stood at the end of a successful integration process, not at the beginning”, she stated. The far-right FPÖ called the Viennese charter a “provocation”.

READ ALSO: ANALYSIS: Could Austria ever change the rules to allow dual citizenship?

In the end, a coalition as it is in Austria, with the main party ÖVP and junior party Greens, is unlikely to bring any changes anytime soon.

The next parliamentary elections are set for 2024, though. This is when Austria decides on a new National Council and chancellor.

Things look tricky for Austria. Current coalition partners are plummeting in polls while the centre-left SPÖ e and far-right FPÖ climb. As it stands, a coalition between SPÖ-ÖVP looks likely – though the growth of the Greens and liberal NEOS could see Austria’s own “traffic light” coalition between SPÖ-Greens-NEOS.

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VIENNA

Vienna Festival director Milo Rau hits back at anti-Semitism accusations

One of the latest events in Europe to be hit with accusations of anti-Semitism, the Vienna Festival kicks off Friday, with its new director, Milo Rau, urging that places of culture be kept free of the "antagonism" of the Israel-Hamas war while still tackling difficult issues.

Published: 17 May 2024 14:48 CEST
Vienna Festival director Milo Rau hits back at anti-Semitism accusations

As the conflict in Gaza sharply polarises opinion, “we must be inflexible” in defending the free exchange of ideas and opinions, the acclaimed Swiss director told AFP in an interview this week.

“I’m not going to take a step aside… If we let the antagonism of the war and of our society seep into our cultural and academic institutions, we will have completely lost,” said the 47-year-old, who will inaugurate the Wiener Festwochen, a festival of theatre, concerts, opera, film and lectures that runs until June 23rd in the Austrian capital and that has taken on a more political turn under his tenure.

The Swiss director has made his name as a provocateur, whether travelling to Moscow to stage a re-enactment of the trial of Russian protest punk band Pussy Riot, using children to play out the story of notorious Belgian paedophile Marc Dutroux, or trying to recruit Islamic State jihadists as actors.

Completely ridiculous 

The Vienna Festival has angered Austria’s conservative-led government — which is close to Israel — by inviting Greek former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis and French Nobel Prize winner for literature Annie Ernaux, both considered too critical of Israel.

A speech ahead of the festival on Judenplatz (Jews’ Square) by Israeli-German philosopher Omri Boehm — who has called for replacing Israel with a bi-national state for Arabs and Jews —  also made noise.

“Who will be left to invite?  Every day, there are around ten articles accusing us of being anti-Semitic, saying that our flag looks like the Palestinian flag, completely ridiculous things,” Rau said, as he worked from a giant bed which has been especially designed by art students and installed at the festival office.

Hamas’ bloody October 7th assault on southern Israel and the devastating Israeli response have stoked existing rancour over the Middle East conflict between two diametrically opposed camps in Europe.

In this climate, “listening to the other side is already treachery,” lamented the artistic director.

“Wars begin in this impossibility of listening, and I find it sad that we Europeans are repeating war at our level,” he said.

As head of also the NTGent theatre in the Belgian city of Ghent, he adds his time currently “is divided between a pro-Palestinian country and a pro-Israeli country,” or between “colonial guilt” in Belgium and “genocide guilt” in Austria, Adolf Hitler’s birthplace.

Institutional revolution

The “Free Republic of Vienna” will be proclaimed on Friday as this year’s Vienna Festival celebrates. according to Rau, “a second modernism, democratic, open to the world” in the city of the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, and artist and symbolist master Gustav Klimt.

Some 50,000 people are expected to attend the opening ceremony on the square in front of Vienna’s majestic neo-Gothic town hall.

With Rau describing it as an “institutional revolution” and unlike any other festival in Europe, the republic has its own anthem, its own flag and a council made up of Viennese citizens, as well as honorary members, including Varoufakis and Ernaux, who will participate virtually in the debates.

The republic will also have show trials — with real lawyers, judges and politicians participating — on three weekends.

Though there won’t be any verdicts, Rau himself will be in the dock to embody “the elitist art system”, followed by the republic of Austria and finally by the anti-immigrant far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), which leads polls in the Alpine EU member ahead of September national elections.

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