Popular initiative (Austria)

A referendum is an instrument of direct democracy in Austria . With it, the people can demand that a legislative proposal be dealt with in the National Council . In order to lead a referendum to success - i.e. to a treatment in parliament - the initiators must first collect 8,401 declarations of support after registering the referendum in the introductory procedure, whereby a declaration of support can be made in front of any municipality or online using a mobile phone signature or citizen card , and then following in the actual registration process within a period of one week 100,000 voters or one sixth of the voters from three federal states must sign the referendum. A direct influence on the legislation is explicitly not intended. The National Council must discuss the issue, but it does not have to pass a favorable draft law in accordance with the referendum. From a formal point of view, this non-binding instrument is therefore a popular petition .

In principle, the referendum is regulated in Art. 41 Para. 2 B-VG ; the more detailed provisions on the procedure are contained in the 2018 Volksbegehrengesetz ( Federal Law Gazette I No. 106/2016 as amended).

Requirements and implementation

In order to be able to apply for an Austria-wide registration week for the referendum, declarations of support are required. For this, one per mille of the population recorded by the last census of valid signed declarations of support is required (as of January 1, 2018, this is 8,401). This support also counts as signatures for the actual referendum. The signature had to be made by 2017 at the home municipality office or the magistrate in front of the official. Alternatively, a referendum could be initiated by eight members of the National Council or four members of each of three different state parliaments. Since January 1, 2018, with the introduction of the new central voter register, referendums can be signed in any municipality regardless of the main place of residence and also online using a mobile phone signature or citizen card . This applies to both the submission of a declaration of support and the signing of a referendum.

A referendum must be dealt with in the National Council if it reaches at least 100,000 signatures (until 1981 it had to be 200,000) or the votes of at least one sixth of those eligible to vote in three federal states. In practice, however, this alternative is meaningless, since one sixth of the number of eligible voters in the three smallest federal states, corresponding to the number of eligible voters, is well over 100,000; For example, in the 2009 European elections , a sixth of voters from Burgenland , Vorarlberg and Salzburg would have received at least 147,897 votes.

So far 33 of 38 referendums have overcome this hurdle: List of referendums in Austria .

Successful referendums

The most successful referendum that was not supported by political parties was the 1964 Broadcasting Referendum to reform the Austrian public broadcasting service (ORF), which was initiated by the daily newspaper Kurier under the editor-in-chief Hugo Portisch and supported by numerous newspapers. It was signed by more than 830,000 people and actually resulted in the Broadcasting Act .

Further direct democracy procedures

Referendum

Two similar procedures can be distinguished from the referendum. A referendum delivers a binding result, the legislature is bound by the outcome of the procedure.

In 2011 the later Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache of the Federal Government Kurz I advocated a binding referendum with 150,000 signatures or more. In 2012 and in the 2017 election campaign, the future Chancellor Sebastian Kurz called for a mandatory referendum if ten percent of those eligible to vote (around 640,000 people) sign a referendum. In December 2017, the government program of the Federal Government Brief I stipulated that it should be decided in 2022 that a binding referendum should follow with more than 900,000 supporters of a referendum, if this was not implemented within one year.

Referendum

A referendum carried out by the government, on the other hand, provides a mere picture of the opinion of the population, but is not legally binding.

Parliamentary citizens' initiative

In Austria, submitting a parliamentary citizens' initiative is much less time-consuming than a referendum. This can be signed freely, ie without being forced to go to the office and must be supported by at least 500 citizens who have reached the age of 16. After the submission, the parliamentary citizens' initiative is dealt with by the petitions committee of the Austrian National Council. In Austria, all citizens from the age of 16 can vote and therefore also support or submit parliamentary citizens' initiatives. The first parliamentary citizens' initiative that was signed by children and young people was submitted in July 2009 by the “Cool School” association. Since October 31, 2014, it has been possible for the first time to register online as a supporter of a parliamentary citizens 'initiative for the citizens' initiative "Politreform-now: Stop the descent of Austria - with the 6 billion political reform" (59 / BI) " promised to listen more to the initiators of parliamentary citizens' initiatives in parliamentary committees.