Vienna City Council and Parliament

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Vienna City Council and Parliament
Basic data
Seat: townhall of Vienna
Legislative period : five years
First session: 1848 as municipal council,
10 November 1920 also as state parliament
MPs: 100
Current legislative period
Last choice: October 11, 2015
Next choice: October 11, 2020
Chair: City council chairman Thomas Reindl (SPÖ), state parliament president Ernst Woller (SPÖ)
      
Distribution of seats: Coalition of Officials (54)
  • SPÖ 44
  • GREEN 10
    • Opposition (46)
  • FPÖ 30
  • ÖVP 7
  • NEOS 5
  • DAÖ 4
    		•
    Website
    www.wien.gv.at (Vienna City Council)
    www.wien.gv.at (Vienna State Parliament)

    As a result of Vienna's dual function as municipality and state (city state), the 100 politicians elected to the Vienna City Council , the highest administrative body of the City of Vienna, also act as mandataries in the Vienna Landtag , the regional parliament of the Federal State of Vienna. The term of office is five years.

    According to the Vienna City Constitution, the business of the City of Vienna and the State of Vienna are to be conducted separately. Accordingly, the municipal council and the state parliament hold separate meetings, although they have the same members. The meeting reports are published in the same series, however. The members of parliament, if they are convened as a municipal council, meet under the chairmanship of the municipal council chairperson and can only deal with matters relating to the municipality of Vienna, but not matters relating to the state of Vienna. If they meet as the Landtag of Vienna at the invitation of the President of the Landtag (not identical with the Presidency of the Municipal Council), the MPs are only allowed to deal with state affairs but not affairs of the community. This means that the legal situation in Vienna is different from that in the city-states of Berlin or Hamburg .

    Vienna City Council

    The municipal council , first formed after the revolution in 1848 on the basis of the provisional municipal law of March 17, 1849 issued with an imperial patent, was enlarged accordingly in the decades that followed the expansion of Vienna. After the incorporation of Floridsdorf in 1904/1905 it comprised 165 mandataries until 1923, until 1918 exclusively men. The legislative provisions for this were passed by the Lower Austrian Landtag as a provincial law.

    The municipal council could only be elected by all citizens residing in Vienna after 1918; Until then, the leading strata of Vienna and Lower Austria had prevented the universal suffrage, which was realized for men in Cisleithanien in 1907, in municipal and state politics.

    In the Vienna City Constitution , which it resolved to act as a Landtag for the first time on November 10, 1920 on the basis of the Federal Constitutional Act that came into force on the same day, the City Council is named before the Landtag and is the highest collegial body of the City of Vienna as City with its own statute .

    In 1923 the number of members of the local council or state parliament was reduced to 120 by a state constitutional law, and in 1929 (first applied in the 1932 election) to 100 (this number is still valid today).

    The municipal council elects the mayor (since November 10, 1920, at the same time governor ) and the (incumbent) city councilors since June 1, 1920, who have also been members of the Vienna provincial government since November 10, 1920 (first choice : see state government and city senate Reumann ), exercises control over all other municipal bodies and decides on the budget and the accounts (including the state budget, which is not managed separately). It also decides on all major issues of the city, urban planning, the duty post plan and the division of responsibilities for the Vienna City Senate and the Vienna Provincial Government . It is therefore a very busy body , also with the municipal council committees for the individual business groups of the magistrate . From a legal point of view, the municipal council is to be understood as an executive body , since municipalities in Austria do not have their own legislation but have to implement federal and state laws.

    In the years 1934 to 1945 the democratic form of government was interrupted, in the corporate state dictatorship 1934–1938 the municipal council was replaced by the Viennese citizens . From 1945 the legal situation was restored until 1934.

    Vienna State Parliament

    The Vienna Landtag has existed since November 10, 1920. On this day, the Federal Constitution passed by the National Assembly on October 1, 1920 came into force, which defined Vienna as a separate federal state and laid down rules for the legal and economic separation of Vienna from Lower Austria . On November 10, 1920, the “Municipal Council as Landtag” passed the Vienna City Constitution, which is essentially still valid today, and which was announced in the first edition of the State Law Gazette for Vienna. On January 1, 1922, the " Separation Act " passed by the Viennese and Lower Austrian state parliaments on December 29, 1921 came into force. After lengthy negotiations, the property of the previous state of Lower Austria was divided between the two new states.

    The state parliament has the legislative right for state laws and state constitutional laws; the state competencies are determined in the federal constitutional law. Bills can be introduced to the state parliament as government bills, through initiative motions (supported by at least five state parliament members) or through referendums. Like the other provincial parliaments in Austria, the Viennese provincial parliament is hardly active because the provincial legislation has only a few powers. For some years now, controversial discussions have been held about the existence and size of the state parliaments. They do not affect the Viennese state parliament, as its members mostly act as councilors.

    Meeting place

    The municipal council met until June 20, 1885 in the meeting room in the old town hall , which is now used by the district council of the 1st district, the inner city . Since then, like the state parliament since November 10, 1920, it has met in the (New) Town Hall , which was completed in 1883 . Its municipal council meeting room was originally equipped with its own carriage drive from Friedrich-Schmidt-Platz . From here (now one of the town hall entrances) stairs 7 and 8 lead directly to the conference room on the first floor. The entrances to the visiting gallery of the meeting room are one floor higher.

    documentation

    The information database of the Vienna State Parliament and City Council (INFODAT Vienna) managed by the Vienna City and State Archives makes all political events since 1996 visible and transparent; you can search for search terms, keywords, individual processes or people. Over 70,000 cases (zoning, subsidies, draft laws, debates, etc.) including links to the materials are currently available online.

    See also

    Web links

    Individual evidence

    1. ^ Chairman of the local council Thomas Reindl
    2. ^ Orf.at: Ernst Woller new state parliament president . Article dated May 25, 2018, accessed May 25, 2018.
    3. ↑ RGBl. No. 170/1849 (= p. 203 ff.)
    4. ↑ Decree of the Minister of the Interior of October 28, 1849, RGBl. No. 440/1849 (= p. 821)
    5. ↑ LGBl. F. Austria under the Enns No. 1/1905 (= p. 1)
    6. ↑ LGBl. F. Vienna No. 77/1923 (= p. 115)
    7. ↑ LGBl. F. Vienna No. 1/1930 (= p. 1)
    8. ^ Vienna City Council. In: dasrotewien.at - Web dictionary of the Viennese social democracy. SPÖ Vienna (Ed.)
    9. ↑ LGBl. F. Vienna No. 1/1920 (= p. 1)