Austria first

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"Austria first" was the name of a referendum that was initiated in 1992 by the Freedom Party of Austria under the leadership of Jörg Haider and was open for signature from January 25th to February 1st, 1993. It was supported by 416,531 people.

background

The referendum was presented as one of the first points in the reorientation of the Freedom Party, in the course of which the liberal wing of the party was further marginalized and dealing with immigration became a core issue of the FPÖ's policy. Before it was initiated, in autumn 1992 the FPÖ demanded the establishment of a special committee “to deal with the foreigner issue” in the National Council in order to discuss its ideas for restrictive legislation. Otherwise, one wanted to give these plans pressure through a referendum. After the other parliamentary parties ( SPÖ , ÖVP and Greens ) rejected the establishment of this special committee, the FPÖ decided in October 1992 to launch the referendum “Austria first”.

The aim of the request was to implement the following twelve points:

  • Constitutional provision: "Austria is not a country of immigration"
  • Immigration to be stopped until the illegal immigration question has been resolved, until the housing shortage is eliminated and the unemployment rate is reduced to 5 percent.
  • Identification is required for foreign employees at work, whereby this identification must show the work permit and the registration for health insurance.
  • Increase in the executive ( aliens police, criminal police ), as well as their better pay and equipment to record illegal foreigners and to fight crime more effectively, especially organized crime.
  • Immediate creation of permanent border protection ( customs , gendarmerie ) instead of the use of the armed forces .
  • Relaxation of the school situation by limiting the proportion of pupils with a foreign mother tongue in compulsory and vocational school classes to a maximum of 30 percent; if there are more than 30 percent foreign-language children, regular classes for foreigners are set up.
  • Relaxation of the school situation through participation in regular lessons only with sufficient knowledge of German (preparatory classes).
  • No right to vote for foreigners in general elections.
  • No early granting of Austrian citizenship.
  • Rigorous measures against illegal commercial activities (such as in foreigners' associations and clubs) and against abuse of social benefits.
  • Immediate expulsion and residence ban for foreign offenders.
  • Establishment of an Eastern Europe Foundation to prevent migration.

Reactions

Critics and often in the media described it as an anti-foreigner referendum , and the intention and campaign for it were viewed as racist agitation. In addition to the then governing parties SPÖ and ÖVP as well as the Greens, the Austrian Bishops' Conference , among others, spoke out against it. In protest against the referendum, the human rights organization SOS Mitmensch was founded, which organized the Sea of ​​Lights on January 23, 1993 , the largest demonstration of the Second Republic to date .

With a registration rate of 7.35 percent of eligible voters, the referendum remained well below the 20 percent hoped for by the FPÖ. This result was then presented in the media as the defeat of Jörg Haider.

On February 4, Heide Schmidt , then deputy party leader, resigned from the FPÖ. In the run-up to the referendum, she was the only member of the party's federal executive committee to refuse to support this FPÖ initiative. With her, the FPÖ mandataries Thomas Barmüller , Friedhelm Frischenschlager , Hans Helmut Moser and Klara Motter left the party and founded the Liberal Forum . In order to forestall an expulsion, the FPÖ left the Liberal International on July 8th .

The slogan "Austria first" was taken up again by the FPÖ under the leadership of Heinz-Christian Strache on election posters, as the title of a piece of music spoken by Strache based on rap and by prefixing the new party program decided on June 18, 2011 as the motto has been.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ö1 : The FPÖ then and now - review, status quo and outlook , August 28, 2006
  2. ^ Austrian media library : Criticism of the anti-foreigner referendum - “not Christian” , ORF television report, October 22, 1992
  3. ↑ Jens Urbat: Right-wing populists in power: Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia in the new Italian party system . Münster: LIT Verlag 2007. ISBN 9783825897079 , p. 261
  4. ↑ Niku Dorostkar: (Multilingualism and Lingualism: The Discursive Construction of Language in the Context of National and Supranational Language Policy Using the Example of Austria) . Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013. ISBN 9783847001638 . P. 157
  5. ↑ Date , Issue 03/09: The Freedom That She Means ( Memento from December 31, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), March 1, 2005
  6. ↑ austriancharts.at: HC Strache: Austria first (2009)
  7. ^ Party program of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) (PDF), decided by the federal party conference on June 18, 2011