Austria: Freedom in the World 2024 Country Report
Freedom House
See the Freedom in the World 2024 score and learn about democracy and freedom in Austria.
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Freedom House
Executive elections in Austria are generally free and fair. The president is elected for a six-year term and has predominantly ceremonial duties. The president does, however, have the right to dissolve parliament and appoints the chancellor, who also needs the support of the legislature to govern. President Alexander Van der Bellen, former Green Party leader, narrowly prevailed in 2016 against FPÖ candidate Norbert Hofer. Van der Bellen was reelected to the presidency in 2022.

Following snap elections in 2019, an ÖVP–Green government took office in January 2020, marking the first time the Greens have participated in a national government. Sebastian Kurz of the ÖVP, who led the previous ÖVP–FPÖ coalition, returned as chancellor, but was forced to resign in October 2021 over corruption allegations, and ultimately left politics altogether. In December 2021, ÖVP party officials chose then interior minister Karl Nehammer to become both party leader and chancellor.

Legislative elections in Austria are generally considered free and fair. The 183 members of the National Council (Nationalrat), the lower house of the Austrian national parliament, are chosen through proportional representation at the district, state, and federal levels, and serve five-year terms. The 61 members of the upper house, the Federal Council (Bundesrat), are appointed by state legislatures for five- or six-year terms.

Snap National Council elections took place in September 2019, after the Ibizagate affair triggered the previous ÖVP–FPÖ coalition’s collapse. The ÖVP was the clear winner with 71 seats. The Green Party returned after a two-year absence from parliament, winning 26 seats. Support for the FPÖ collapsed, with the party losing 20 seats and holding 31. The SPÖ won 40, while The New Austria and Liberal Forum (NEOS) claimed 15.

The participation of recognized minorities—including Slovene, Hungarian, Polish, and Romany minorities—in local government remains limited. There is little minority representation in the legislature. In 2023, the Bosnian community in Austria started a campaign to gain legal status as minority group. The naturalization rate has declined since the establishment of a more restrictive national integration policy in 2009. In the 2022 general elections, over 1 million permanent residents were not allowed to vote due to their lack of Austrian citizenship.

Several parties include support for gender equality in their platforms. In the 2019 elections, 39 percent of the members elected to the parliament were women, a slight increase compared to 2017.

Non-Austrian EU citizens are entitled to vote in municipal elections as well as in European Parliament elections.

Public-sector corruption is problematic, and the political class is widely perceived as corrupt. The Council of Europe (CoE)’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) has criticized Austria for failing to regulate lobbying and prevent corruption.

In recent years, the corruption prosecutor’s office has investigated numerous allegations of false testimony, bribery, and corruption involving senior FPÖ and ÖVP politicians, including former chancellor Kurz and former vice chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache. High-level corruption investigations continued in 2023, including into the president of the National Council, Wolfgang Sobotka, who has been implicated in numerous corruption scandals. In October, former chancellor Kurz was brought to trial for allegedly making false statements to a 2020 parliamentary committee inquiry into allegations of corruption in his government. The trial remained ongoing at year’s end.

Following a 2019 EU directive requiring member states to pass laws implementing rights and obligations regarding whistleblowers, the government drafted a bill in 2022 that would introduce far-reaching measures to protect whistleblowers. The act was passed by the National Council in February 2023 and came into force later that month. Companies and legal entities with 50 to 249 employees were given until December to create and implement whistleblower systems as required by the new law.

The federal constitution and the Media Law of 1981 provide the basis for free media in Austria. However, libel and slander laws protect politicians and government officials, many of whom—particularly members of the FPÖ—have filed defamation suits in recent years. Media ownership remains highly concentrated, particularly in the provinces, and the government exerts considerable influence on the state broadcaster, the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF). In October 2023, the VfGH found that the rules for appointing members to ORF’s two main control bodies were partially unconstitutional, giving the federal government too much influence over the bodies’ compositions. The ruling requires the government to reform the appointment process by March 2025.

Media outlets are eligible to receive government funding through advertising and in the form of press subsidies intended to ensure media diversity. A new law was passed in November 2023, linking subsidies for print and online media outlets to quality assurance mechanisms, such as employing professional journalists, which is intended to incentivize high-quality journalism.

In 2021, several ÖVP politicians resigned over allegations of having purchased favorable news coverage during the 2017 elections. Former family minister Sophie Karmasin was issued a 15-month suspended sentence in May 2023 for illegally limiting competition for government contracts.

While there is no official censorship, Austrian law prohibits any form of neo-Nazism or antisemitism, as well as the public denial, approval, or justification of Nazi crimes, including the Holocaust.

Religious freedom is constitutionally guaranteed. Austrian law divides religious organizations into three legal categories: officially recognized religious societies, religious confessional communities, and associations. Many religious minority groups allege that the law impedes their legitimate claims for recognition and demotes them to second-class status.

Foreign funding for Muslim houses of worship and imams is prohibited by a 2015 law; Orthodox Christian and Jewish groups with similarly strong links to communities abroad face no such restrictions. The FPÖ has been criticized for stoking anti-Muslim sentiment through controversial advertising campaigns.

In recent years, antisemitic and anti-Islamic tendencies have become more prevalent. During 2022, the Austrian Documentation and Counseling Center for Muslims recorded more than 1,300 cases of physical or verbal attacks and hate speech against Muslims in Austria. Following the October 2023 attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas and the subsequent outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, the Jewish Community of Vienna (IKG) recorded a sharp increase in antisemitic attacks and hate speech.

Freedom of assembly is constitutionally protected and respected in practice.

During 2023, however, a number of pro-Palestinian protests, primarily in Vienna, were prohibited following the October attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas. Some protesters were arrested or reported to the police for using slogans and symbols that authorities had banned. In October, hundreds of protesters attended a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Vienna despite a ban on the event issued by the authorities. Most demonstrations were peaceful, but featured a heavy police presence.

The judiciary is independent and is generally held in high regard among Austrians. The Constitutional Court examines the compatibility of legislation with the constitution without political influence or interference.

Austrian judges are appointed by the executive instead of a politically independent body, which the CoE has criticized as an insufficient separation of the state government from the judiciary. Negotiations over the establishment of a politically independent public prosecutor’s office remained ongoing within the government coalition during the year.

In recent years, ÖVP officials have drawn criticism for allegedly attempting to obstruct judicial investigations into corruption allegations involving ÖVP politicians.

Some groups face difficulty exercising their human rights before the law. Strong rhetoric has been directed against refugees and migrants in recent years. Some asylum seekers can be deported while appeals are pending. In recent years, international organizations have criticized the Austrian asylum system for failing to meet international standards.

LGBT+ people face some societal discrimination. Although hate crime legislation prohibits incitement based on sexual orientation, no law prohibits service providers from denying services on that basis.

Despite some improvement, gender equality remains an issue in Austria. According to Eurostat, Austria’s gender wage gap of nearly 19 percent is among the largest in the EU.

Several members of Austria’s armed forces have faced disciplinary proceedings and criminal charges in recent years for allegedly engaging in far-right extremist activities. In December 2023, the parliament passed a reform of a law banning the use and display of Nazi symbols, broadening its scope and introducing harsher penalties for people convicted of violating it. Under the reformed legislation, any public employee convicted of breaking that law will face automatic dismissal.