Europäisches Zentrum für Föderalismus-Forschung

Europäische Länderberichte

Ein Jahr im Tiefflug  Föderalismus in Österreich: Ein Rückblick auf das Jahr 2006

Günther Pallaver

S. 355-372

The year 2006 in Austria was characterised by two central political events: The EU presidency in the first six months and the parliamentary elections on October 1. Thus both events focused political debates on subjects which scarcely left space for issues of federalism on the political agenda. During the political campaigning federalism was not discussed. In the political manifestoes the issue was scarcely present, in some parties not at all. The negotiations after the elections between the Social Democrats (SPÖ) and the Peoples Party (ÖVP) led to the reform project of federalism being brought into the government programme. This was also thanks to the pressure of the regional leaders. The public awareness of this issue was only affected because of the tension between the state and the region of Carinthia regarding the question of bilingual place name signs in villages with Slovenians minorities. This controversy, which has seen, for a long time, the rule of law flouted, goes on without solution and is waiting for a definitive resolution even after a clear judgement made by the Supreme Court five years ago. A state under the rule of law, which after five years is not able to implement a judgement of the Supreme Court has serious problems of democracy. Whoever knows the Austrian soul will understand that to ignore a judgement of the Supreme Court without legal or political consequences is only possible because a linguistic minority, which in the past was always treated like a stepchild and not an important group, was given a right. In a certain sense the role of the second camber of the Austrian parliament also received media interest. The Bundesrat has a suspensive veto and because of the different political majorities in the first and the second cambers the Bundesrat had never seen so many bills rejected as it did in 2006. Apart from these few federalism issues the article examines how strongly federalism issues were discussed in the Austrian media. The results of research carried out by Mediawatch Institute (Innsbruck) makes it clear that the issue of federalism in all relevant media in Austria was more or less not present: Only 0.2 percent of all issues dealt with federalism issues.

Zitiervorschlag für diesen Artikel:
Pallaver, Günther 2008: Ein Jahr im Tiefflug  Föderalismus in Österreich: Ein Rückblick auf das Jahr 2006, in: Europäisches Zentrum für Föderalismus-Forschung (Hrsg.): Jahrbuch des Föderalismus 2007. Föderalismus, Subsidiarität und Regionen in Europa, Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, S. 355-372.