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POLITICS

Austrian minister wants foreigners to improve German level to keep social benefits

Austrian's Integration Minister, Susanne Raab, from the conservative ÖVP, has floated the idea of making it mandatory for immigrants to reach a certain level of German if receiving social benefits to better integrate them into the labour market.

Published: 24 August 2023 16:47 CEST
A person studying.
A person studying. Photo by lilartsy on Unsplash

Raab, of the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), said she could envisage a system that saw people receiving certain types of social welfare support – known as Sozialhilfe – having to reach a “certain level of language proficiency” within a period of time to keep their benefits.

At the moment, she said, only attendance is compulsory in order not to lose social assistance.

Raab was speaking out at a presentation of the ‘Integration Report’ on Thursday, reported Austrian newspaper Der Standard.

“We are thinking about how to map this in law,” Raab said. 

The minister also advocated for a waiting period for immigrants to be able to access social assistance in Austria based on the Danish model. 

As The Local reported, the ÖVP has stated that foreigners should live in Austria for five years before being eligible to claim benefits.

READ ALSO: How the ÖVP wants to make it harder for foreigners to access benefits

Raab said the social system should “not be an incentive” for immigration.

She said she had “no understanding” why so many people don’t make the leap into the labour market despite completing several courses and are instead stuck in an “endless course loop”.

“I think it is unacceptable, especially in the current labour market situation, that people spend years in the welfare system,” Raab said, adding that it’s not always about “German at university level”, but about basic skills.

Of the foreign nationals who arrived in Austria in 2022, seven out of 10 had literacy needs, Raab said. This proportion is highest among Syrians, at 78 percent.

Katharina Pabel, chairperson of the integration advisory board, said there was a need to provide immigrants with more assistance. 

Pabel called for a more flexible German language offer, such as the online German learning units organised by the Integration Fund (ÖIF), which are tailored to entry-level jobs. 

However, there’s strong opposition. 

The liberal NEOS party integration spokesman Yannick Shetty accused Raab of “further pandering to the FPÖ (Freedom Party) with the populist demand for cuts in social benefits”.

Experts also hit back at the idea of establishing a ‘performance requirement’.

Christoph Riedl, asylum expert at the Diakonie social welfare organisation, said he doubted linking performance in courses to benefits would be allowed under international law. The Geneva Convention on Refugees provides for equal treatment of refugees and citizens, he told Der Standard. 

According to Lukas Gahleitner-Gertz of the Asylkoordination group for asylum seekers, this requirement would have to apply to every nationality coming to Austria from abroad in order to be in line with EU law.

How many people with a migration background live in Austria?

Austria is a diverse country. The latest figures show that every fourth person in Austria has a migration background.

A total of 2.35 million people with a migration background lived in Austria in 2022, Tobias Thomas, Director General of Statistics Austria said on Thursday. The share of those whose parents were both born abroad rose from 25.4 percent the previous year to 26.4 percent of the total population at the end of 2022. 

The largest group of the 1.7 million foreigners living in Austria as of January 1st this year were German citizens (225,000), followed by Romanians (147,500), Serbians (121,900), and Turkish nationals (119,700).

The countries of origin Croatia, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Syria, Ukraine, and Poland are ranked in fifth to 10th spot. The strongest increases since 2015 in absolute numbers were among Romanians (with an increase of 74,100), Ukrainians (a hike of 71,000), Syrians (plus 70,900) and Germans (an increase of 54,500).

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POLITICS

‘Glass half full’: Who is Austria’s Beer Party candidate for chancellor?

Austria's controversial but increasingly popular Beer Party announced it would run in the upcoming National Council elections, with party leader and former rock star Dominik Wlazny seeking the chancellery.

Published: 30 April 2024 16:38 CEST
'Glass half full': Who is Austria's Beer Party candidate for chancellor?

With his distinctive long dark hair and rebellious torn jeans, punk rock singer Dominik Wlazny of Austria’s Beer Party has emerged as an intriguing candidate for the country’s next chancellor, just as he did when he ran for president—and surprisingly did better than expected.

Yet, Wlazny announced this Tuesday that the Beer Party will definitely be running in the national elections and seeks to reach a self-imposed funding target of  €1.2 million. “Our glass is more than half full, and there is massive support,” he said at a short press conference.

Wlazny, who joked that his announcement would probably cause “gasps” at the other parties’ headquarters, did not answer any questions after his statement but announced another press conference next week with more details. 

READ ALSO: How do Austrians elect their chancellor?

In almost all of the most recently published polls, the Beer Party would overcome the four percent hurdle, meaning Wlazny may not be the country’s next chancellor. Still, the protest party might grab seats in Austria’s National Council. The left-of-centre movement is likely to attract protest voters in particular and could be an unpleasant opponent for the SPÖ, Greens and KPÖ.

Wlazny’s previous electoral performance provides some insight into the Beer Party’s potential in the upcoming elections. In the 2022 presidential elections, the medical graduate, long known primarily as band leader Marco Pogo, came third with 8.3 percent of the vote and even came second in Vienna.

Who’s behind the beer party?

The Beer Party, a satirical political movement, was founded in 2015 by Austrian comedian, doctor, brewer, and musician Dominik Wlazny, known by his stage name Marco Pogo. The party was a response to perceived corruption and a lack of transparency in Austrian politic, aiming to bring a fresh and unconventional approach to governance.

Wlazny studied medicine in Vienna and worked as a general doctor in a hospital before quitting in 2014 to focus on music.

Wlazny said that he was inspired by one of the songs played by the punk band he was a part of, which included the lyrics: ‘If you like to be fat and drink a lot every day, then vote for us now, the Beer Party, and we’ll abolish the alcohol tax.”

More serious proposals have slowly replaced the controversial party policies. When he ran for president, Wlazny said he would vet candidates proposed as ministers, making them go through a hiring process like in a company, to seek to avoid political chaos due to unfit leaders.

Currently, the president usually doesn’t reject the government’s choices.

“I often have the feeling that it’s harder to get an apprenticeship in Austria than a ministerial post,” Wlazny said at the time.

Wlazny also said that, as president, he would want to push for establishing a so-called “Future Ministry” to check the impact of policy decisions on security, the environment, health, and other sectors.

He said measures should have been taken decades ago to avoid the country’s dependence on fossil fuels, which hurts it now amid the ripple effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

READ ALSO: Why is support for Austria’s far-right FPÖ rising?

But what are the party’s program points?

There have been none so far. The Beer Party hasn’t made its National Council election promises public and hasn’t announced a party list, at least not yet.

Austrian political commentator Thomas Hofer told the newspaper Kurier that the strategy is clever: “As long as he doesn’t have a detailed program, Wlazny remains less vulnerable in terms of content—even if this is, of course, problematic in terms of democratic politics.” 

There is also very little information on the party’s website. One page, called “menu,” holds some of the party’s general and superficial proposals, such as “active fight against child and family poverty,” “transparent and comprehensible rental price regulation,” “educational equality for all,” “expansion of the public transport network,” and more.

The party also claims women should have the “right to make decisions about their own body” and that small and medium enterprises are the “backbone of the economy” and a focus for the politicians. 

Additionally, they advocate for “appropriate doctor/patient care ratio”, “environmentally friendly, sustainable energy policy for a climate-neutral Austria”, and “promotion of research and development”, among others. 

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