20 Years “Neutral Free Austria”
by Daniel Jenny and Rudolf Pomaroli
During their 2023 annual meeting the association “Neutral Free Austria” (NFÖ) celebrated their 20th anniversary. The attractive schedule certainly lived up to the occasion.
The political initiative “Neutral Free Austria” (NFÖ) is an association of political groups, small parties and individuals throughout Austria. Their constitution was registered with the ministry of interior affairs on 17 March 2003. This act made the association NFÖ equivalent to a political party. The founding meeting took place on 11 October 2003 in Salzburg.
This year’s meeting started with a discussion on the troubling topic of the war in Ukraine. In his opening statement Gerald Grüner, the deputy chairman, summarised the historical developments since 1990 and chaired the discussion afterwards.
Concerning the consequences of the Ukraine war, the participants agreed that both Austrian and Swiss neutrality has been and continues to be jeopardised or even undermined by wrong decisions of the politicians in charge, such as sanctions against only one of the war parties. Accordingly, the meeting unequivocally condemned the tank transports carried out by NATO through Austria in April, since they violated the neutrality principle even against the international community.
Minister Gerhard Karner, who is in charge of interior affairs, should have forbidden the transport through Austria. Yet he maintained that he allowed it because the country of destination stated in the documents was Poland rand not the war party Ukraine, a rather ludicrous pretext.
The attending members and guests also used the discourse to contemplate on how peace could become a reality again. A promising first step towards peace should be the cancellation of the sanctions against Russia, which were imposed by the Austrian government following orders from the EU. A survey among 1000 Austrians revealed in April 2023 that only a minority of 37 % support EU sanctions against Russia while 41 % demand an end to the punishing measures.
Greeting addresses from Professor Dr Heinrich Wohlmeyer, Magister Ralph Bosshard and Universitätsprofessor Dr Michael Geistlinger (see box) stood at the beginning of the yearly meeting. The latter reminded the audience of the obligations of neutral Austria, namely: the duties of abstinence (to abstain from waging wars) and non-partisanship as well as the obligation not to let third parties abuse Austrian territory for their war efforts.
The founder and long-time chairman of the association, the engineer Rudolf Pomaroli, was presented with an honorary document acknowledging his inexhaustible committment. In his acceptance speech Alt-Obmann Rudolf assured the audience that they could continue to count on him should his help or advise be needed.
“Neutral Free Austria” (NFÖ) have repeatedly been invited to share their views on alternative internet, radio and television platforms in the past. The official aim is to join forces of all activists towards securing a sovereign, neutral and democratic republic of Austria as it is laid down in the Austrian constitution. To achieve that goal, Austria must inevitably leave the European Union, including Euratom (which is currently based in Vienna).
Any measures to undermine their democracy should be countered most appropriately by the Austrian sovereign with democratic tools such as binding referendums and people’s initiatives. The people should be entitled to launch and carry out any of these at any time.
In co-operation with the Initiative Homeland and Environment(Initiative Heimat und Umwelt, IHU) events on the topic of neutrality had taken place in last December and March. They had been recorded (see nfoe.at).
Speakers included:
- expert on international law and Eastern Europe Universitätsprofessor Dr Michael Geistlinger: “Rights and obligations of eternally neutral Austria in times of a war of the West against Russia, according to international law”
- long-time OSCE co-worker Magister Ralph Bosshard: “Assessment of the military situation in the Ukraine war. Strategic significance of neutral Austria in Europe”
The collection of signatures for the parliamentary citizen’s initiative “Stop sanctions against Russia – now!” is continued by both NFÖ and IHU. Both movements are planning outreach booths in several cities to distribute information material on neutrality and collect more signatures. The resonance has been encouraging so far, many people signed spontaneously at the booths and were generally interested in the peace topic.
At the end of the yearly meeting the NFÖ chairman, engineer Daniel Jenny welcomed Dr René Roca as the keynote speaker. Dr Roca has studied history, is a gymnasium professor in Basel and founding director of the Swiss research institute on direct democracy (www.fidd.ch). In his local community he has served as council member and vice mayor for many years.
The speaker chose the title “Swiss neutrality – a first class peace project”. In his presentation he elaborated on the history of Switzerland regarding neutrality. In his capacity as member of the initiative committee of the Initiative for the preservation of Swiss Neutrality – Neutrality initiative René Roca also introduced the audience to the aim of this people’s initiative which had launched quite well last November:
This aim is that “eternal and armed neutrality” should be laid down as part of the Swiss constitution. This way the Swiss federal government would be prohibited to sign treaties on behalf of Switzerland joining military or protective alliances or contributing to sanctions (“non-military coercive measures against states at war”).
For both Austria and Switzerland neutrality has been endorsed by the international community on several occasions in the past. Our governments should stop their neutrality violations and stick to the rules neutrality requires! Only if states maintain neutrality not just on paper but in real life they will contribute to a sustainably peaceful development on the international level. At present, 155 out of the 193 states in the world don’t support the sanctions against Russia which are illegal from the standpoint of international law. Austria would be well-advised to join the number of those really neutral, non-partisan states. •
(Translation Current Concerns)
(picture screenshot servus-tv)
Address to the 2023 annual general meeting of the “Neutral Free Austria” Association
Dear Mister Jenny, dear members, friends and supporters of the general meeting!
The name of your association is perfectly chosen and sums up decades of history in just three words, connecting history and present situation of Austria with her future. The Soviet military withdrew from Austria in 1955 on condition of eternal Austrian neutrality. Today Austria could be free, had they convincingly pursued a strictly neutral foreign policy. Austria will be free again in the future, on condition of resurrecting their international obligations towards eternal neutrality.
It was the Moscow Memorandum as the basis for the Austrian-Soviet treaty of Vienna and its incorporation into the constitution by the Austrian Federal constitutional court issuing a constitutional law (Bundesverfassungsgesetz) on eternal neutrality which, on the level of international law, all states of the international community were notified of at the time and which at the end led to the four allied forces (Soviet Union, USA, UK and France) withdrawing their troops form Austrian territory and ending the occupation regime. Therefore, from the very beginning of its binding validity in Austria the institution of eternal neutrality exhibited enormous prestige and power. Troops of the four most powerful militaries in the world at the time had occupied Austria but left without firing a single shot. Except for some rudimentary units there was not even such a thing as an Austrian army, not a single soldier was deployed to rid the country of the foreign occupants. All it took was the declaration of eternal neutrality.
For a long period of time, during the Cold war between East and West, credible policies of neutrality secured Austrian freedom. However, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the former universal adversary of the USA, lawmakers in Austria believed to fare better if they left their position in the middle and joined one of the two blocs, i.e. the alleged winner of the Cold war. Therefore, Austria became a member of the collective West by joining the European Union, and this even despite the doubts expressed by the European Commission whether Austrian membership was compatible with the state of neutrality as it was understood and maintained in Austria at the time. The European Commission offered two possible scenarios: either a caveat clause on neutrality or a re-definition of Austrian neutrality policies, rendering them compatible with EU strategies. The latter was implemented and the Iraq war offered the EU a welcome context to immediately demonstrate Austrian compliance to the world with hundreds of internationally illegal NATO flights over Austrian territory as well as tank transports through the country. Then they kept pushing on. The treaties of Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon and subsequent amendments of the Austrian federal constitution undermined Austrian neutrality step by step in the name of European solidarity, the ruling political class alienated the Austrian people by not even telling them when they gradually overrode the constitutional law on eternal neutrality, or, to put it bluntly, revoked it either partially or completely depending on the way you look at it. However, what they could not achieve that way was to revoke neutrality on the international level, too. May some Austrian pro-EU experts on international law try as hard as they can to build up lines of argument for the Austrian government to regard obligations of EU laws as superior to international law – still the EU remains, as a regional international organisation, subject to international law, and Austria cannot invoke their membership with this regional organisation for ignoring obligations towards international law. As a consequence, we witness countless violations of Austrian neutrality during the ongoing war in Ukraine. To recall a recent one: it does not solve the problem to finance demining activities in Ukraine instead of sending special demining units of the Austrian military. Financing violates international law as well, as long as both sides are not treated equally. These are basic principles of neutrality ruling in times of international armed conflicts, such as the one in Ukraine right now. Then it is required to abstain from supportive measures completely, treat both sides equally and shut one’s territory for both military or non-military coercive measures of either side.
But regardless of how many violations will occur, Austria cannot rid itself of the internationally recognised state of neutrality that way. Moreover, it becomes clear to the world that it is not Russia who threatens Austrian neutrality. Rather, it is NATO and the EU who drive Austria deeper and deeper into a behaviour which violates its neutrality and thereby jeopardise Austrian freedom.
In the course of this, organisations such as your association and similarly minded initiatives, societies and political parties committed to honest and actual Austrian neutrality become more and more important, to re-establish Austrian freedom. Time is ripe. The longer the Ukraine war lasts, the more Austrian tax payer’s money is vaporised via EU channels in Ukraine, the nearer the moment when a majority of Austrians will comprehend their fatal political aberrations.
In this regard, I wish you a successful Federal Assembly and perseverance!
Best regards
Michael Geistlinger
(Translation Current Concerns)