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Compulsory vaccination rules come into force in Austria

It's official: From Saturday, Austrians over the age of 18 must be vaccinated against Covid-19 or face the possibility of a heavy fine, an unprecedented measure in the European Union.

A patient receives a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech (Comirnaty) Covid-19 vaccine.
A patient receives a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech (Comirnaty) Covid-19 vaccine. Austria's parliament approved in a vote on January 20th, 2022 the introduction of mandatory Covid-19 vaccination, becoming the first European country to do so. (Photo by JEFF PACHOUD / AFP)

The new measure, adopted on January 20th by Parliament, was signed into law by President Alexander Van der Bellen on Friday, the culmination of a process that began in November in the face of the rapid spread of the Omicron variant.

The government decided to pursue its new tougher approach despite criticism within the country.

“No other country in Europe is following us on compulsory vaccines,” said Manuel Krautgartner, who has campaigned against the new approach.

In neighbouring Germany, a similar law championed by the new Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz was debated last month in the Bundestag, or lower house of parliament, but has not made progress yet due to divisions within the political class.

Checks from mid-March
Despite the threat of such a drastic measure, the vaccination rate in Austria has still failed to take off, languishing below the levels seen in France or Spain.

The humanitarian association Arbeiter Samariter Bund, which oversees some vaccination sites in the capital Vienna, said there had an uptick in turnout this week.

“We recorded a small increase of around nine percent compared to last week,” the organisation’s manager, Michael Hausmann, told AFP.

From the average of around 7,000 injections administered every day in the capital, only 10 percent are a first dose, he said.

Erika Viskancove, a 33-year-old accountant, said she came to a vaccination centre situated next to an Art Deco swimming pool to receive her third booster dose.

“I sincerely believe that the law is the best way” to defeat the pandemic, she said, calling on other countries to follow Austria’s lead.

Melanie, a 23-year-old waitress who preferred not to give her second name, said she was mainly there to avoid ending up “locked up at home”.

Non-vaccinated people are currently excluded from restaurants, sports and cultural venues.

But from now on they will also be subject to fines, which Melanie said was “unhealthy”.

The law applies to all adult residents with the exception of pregnant women, those who have contracted the virus within the past 180 days and those with medical exemptions.

Checks will begin from mid-March, with sanctions ranging from 600 to 3,600 euros ($690-$4,100).

They will, however, be lifted if the person fined gets vaccinated within two weeks.

Protect against new variants 
Waiting in the queue, others say they are in favour of vaccination for all.

“We would have finished a long time ago (with the pandemic) if everyone had been vaccinated”, said legal worker, Angelika Altmann.

More than 60 percent of Austrians support the measure, according to a recent survey, but large swathes of the population remain strongly opposed.

For several weeks after the announcement of the new law, tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest against what they regard as a radical and draconian policy.

Critics have also questioned the need for compulsion given the far milder nature of the Omicron variant.

Conservative Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who leads the Alpine country with the environmentalist Greens, also announced at the same time a relaxation of earlier Covid-19 restrictions.

But for Health Minister Wolfgang Mueckstein, compulsory vaccination is aimed at both protecting the country against new waves and fighting new variants.

Vaccination passes are now a reality in an increasing number of countries for certain professions or activities.

In Ecuador, it is compulsory, including for children over the age of five, a world first.

Before that, two authoritarian states in Central Asia — Tajikistan and Turkmenistan — mandated vaccination, as did Indonesia, even if less than half the population is actually vaccinated.

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Member comments

  1. It is sad that Austria goes the exact opposite way to many other countries by fining perfectly healthy human beings who do not want to take a vaccine that has been on the market just under 2 years. Hopefully their people wake up and realize that this is not necessary and even at the very least psychologically harmful.

    1. Totally agree. It’s a slippery slope for those who don’t learn from history gladly embrace. I guess 80 years after the fascism of NAZI Germany is long enough to repeat without much opposition.

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POLITICS

How Austria’s centre-left SPÖ party plans to change integration policy

Asylum, migration, and integration policies are a much-debated issue in Austria, particularly as the country heads to its national elections in the fall. What are the centre-left SPÖ plans?

How Austria's centre-left SPÖ party plans to change integration policy

National elections in Austria will take place this fall, and one of the most debated issues – certainly one that has been driving voters for the past few years – is the refugee and asylum policy debates. 

While the far-right party FPÖ has gained popularity with extremist views such as closing off Austria entirely for asylum seekers, the centre-right ÖVP has also presented tougher stances. The chancellor’s party has publicly defended the creation of “asylum centres” for processing outside of the EU borders. Chancellor Karl Nehammer has also fully supported the UK’s plan to deport asylum seekers to “safe third countries”

A tougher stance on refugee policies has proved popular in Austria, and the centre-left SPÖ party has also seemed to lean toward stricter ideas more recently. However, since the party got a new leadership, a precise migration programme had not been presented yet. However, the issue was pressing, particularly following the party’s poor performance in the EU elections, when migration played a key role.

READ ALSO: How a change in the profile of asylum seekers is impacting Austria

So what are the party’s plans?

The SPÖ presented a new” masterplan” for asylum, migration, and integration. According to the SPÖ, the “Doskozil-Kaiser paper,” which has existed since 2018, has been “sharpened,” resulting in an “offensive paper” with approaches for action, said SPÖ leader Andreas Babler.

The aim was to “ensure balance and order” under “the premise of humanity”, said Babler at a press conference in Vienna.

The plan’s main points include faster procedures at the EU’s external borders, a fair distribution of refugees within the EU, and sanctions against countries that refuse to do so. With this, the SPÖ wants to reach a 75 percent reduction in the number of asylum applications. 

For example, the party leaders mentioned Hungary, where there were only 45 applications in 2023, compared to almost 60,000 in Austria. They said Hungary had to be persuaded to cooperate by exhausting all legal and political means.

The SPÖ proposes procedure centres along the EU’s external borders so that procedures can be completed more quickly and people do not hand themselves over to smugglers. The EU should set up “common centres for asylum applications”, for example, in embassies. 

People should only be distributed within the EU once the asylum applications have been assessed favourably. As a first step, cooperation between individual states could occur without the consent of all EU member states.

READ ALSO: When do Austrians think an immigrant is successfully integrated?

‘Integration year’ and deportation

The SPÖ plan contains an “extended mandatory integration year” that would ensure refugees get “German and values courses.” However, severe penalties, including deportation, would be imposed for serious offences or “repeated minor crimes.” 

Instead of mass accommodation, the SPÖ proposes small centres enabling better contact with the population. Women’s rights should also become a “central guiding principle for integration”. Women’s self-determination is the top priority, said SPÖ women’s spokesperson Eva-Maria Holzleitner.

The party reiterated that asylum is fundamentally a human right that should never be questioned. However, those who are denied their asylum request would be deported to their country of origin or safe third countries, the party advocates. 

READ ALSO: Who needs to take Austria’s integration exam?

Criticism from the right

Over the weekend, party representatives from far-right FPÖ and centre-right ÖVP have come out to criticise the SPÖ proposals. 

An FPÖ spokesperson said the plan is “pure PR policy” and that, in truth, the SPÖ had “always opened the door to illegal mass immigration under the guise of asylum”. The ÖVP said the proposals are just “headlines instead of concrete proposals for solutions”. 

In a press release, the party said that no capacity limit was presented, showing “that the SPÖ has still not realised that illegal migration cannot be countered by further squeezing the Austrian taxpayer”

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