Austrian neutrality leaves it isolated in peace policy action Analysis by Financial Times

According to a Financial Times report, the Austrian chancellor has reiterated the nation's position while increasing the defense budget, but opponents claim his approach is ineffective. Caliber.Az reprints the article.

A fraught public debate over Austria’s long-cherished neutrality came to a head late last week on the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, when its chancellor was forced to confront the issue at a special session of parliament.

On Friday, as western allies reaffirmed their commitment to Kyiv and stepped up sanctions against Moscow, chancellor Karl Nehammer defended a stance that an increasingly vocal minority in his country is trying to change.

“Austrian neutrality is peace policy in action — it is a defensive neutrality,” he asserted in an impassioned speech that was met with catcalls from opposition parties and observed from the public gallery by Ukrainian diplomats and the Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.

The policy had brought great benefits to Austria, including the trust of more than 50 international diplomatic organisations based in Vienna, he said. “Neutrality, was, is and remains, helpful and useful for our country.”

Austria has been constitutionally neutral since the Soviet Union and allied powers granted the country its independence in 1955 following the second world war. The country celebrates its annual national day on October 26, the date on which its “permanent neutrality” clauses were signed into law.

But with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine prompting Finland and Sweden to seek Nato membership, the landlocked country of 9mn just a few hundred kilometres from the Ukrainian border finds itself ever more isolated in Europe on questions of defence and how best to ensure security.

Nehammer has until now been reluctant to give the issue — which is potentially politically toxic for his conservative Austrian People’s party — any more oxygen.

A survey conducted by the Linzer Market-Institut for newspaper Der Standard last summer — the most recent poll available — found that 71 per cent of Austrians supported maintaining the country’s neutrality, with 17 per cent in favour of joining a collective defence alliance such as Nato instead.

“Neutrality is part of Austrian self identity, it is deeply ingrained,” said Gerhard Mangott, a professor of international relations at the University of Innsbruck. “I don’t think even the conflict in Ukraine is going to have any serious effect on how the majority of the population view [the issue]. The problem is that a lot of Austrians misinterpret neutrality as a guarantee that no country will start a war with Austria.”

That point is not lost on Nehammer, a former army officer, who has spent much of his chancellorship quietly trying to tilt Austria back towards Brussels and Washington and rein in its historical equivocation on Moscow. Austria has long seen itself as bridge between Russia and the west, and under Nehammer’s predecessor, Sebastian Kurz, relations with Russia grew particularly close.

Yet any move towards ending neutrality risks the People’s party losing ground to the far-right Freedom party, which has made the issue a centrepiece of its campaigning. The Freedom party overtook the People’s party in the polls in July and has increased its lead since.

Nehammer may hope his speech has put the lid on the debate. But with the war unlikely to end soon, many Austrian security experts feel the moment is at hand to try and shift public attitudes.

In an open letter last week, more than 90 politicians from across the political spectrum, senior military officers and senior former diplomats urged the country to reconsider its decades of non-alignment.

“Despite the dramatic return of war in Europe, large sections of domestic politics and society have fallen prey to the illusion that Austria can remain as it is, stay out of conflicts and make do with a little more money for the armed forces,” the letter read. “Our security position is internationally ridiculed by some and perceived as spineless by others.”

According to Gustav Gressel, a former Austrian defence official and a signatory to the letter, “nobody in Austria has a good answer today on what this notion of neutrality would actually mean if we took it seriously”.

Gressel, who works for the European Council on Foreign Relations, said Austria had been living in a bubble for decades.

Armed neutrality, or co-operative neutrality — in which a country liaises with other powers in areas such as training and planning — were strategies, he said. But Austria took neither position: its army was weak and its security and intelligence agencies were treated with suspicion in Europe.

He cited the example of Switzerland, which recognised that its neutrality must be matched with a strong defence and security posture.

The government announced a big increase in defence spending in October, with €16bn allocated to the military between now and 2027, bringing levels up to 1.5 per cent of GDP. Nato requires its members to spend 2 per cent of their GDP on defence and in the wake of the Ukraine war, many have pledged to spend even more.

Critics say Austria’s plans show a paucity of ambition and highlight the superficiality of government thinking. For Gressel, the proposed military spending boost is nowhere near enough to give Austria a credible defensive capability.

“In some ways raising this issue of neutrality is the wrong one,” said Helmut Brandstätter, an MP for the liberal Neos party that triggered Friday’s parliamentary debate. “The real question we need to be asking in Austria is ‘what is security?’ We need to think realistically about answers to questions such as, who would we count among our friends if we were attacked?

“If we have learned one thing about Ukraine and the war Russia has waged there, it is that if you are alone, you are in danger.”