Austrian Neutrality Invents New Facets as President Takes Sides in New York

Austria is, meanwhile, constitutionally, permanently neutral.

That was the arrangement under which Austria got the occupying WWII powers out and its sovereignty back.

Austria, of course, successfully turned neutrality into a business model.

Vienna became the place where people who hated each other could still meet.

Kennedy met Khrushchev there. Carter and Brezhnev signed SALT II there.

The United Nations built one of its four main offices there. The IAEA sits there.

The Iran nuclear talks happened there.

Being an Austrian internationally did not immediately mean being on anybody’s side.

Austrians like this arrangement too. Depending on the poll and wording, roughly 70 to 90 percent still support keeping it.

All went good, until the president developed a more modern interpretation.

Austria managed to arrive in New York with at least two versions of Austrian foreign policy.

Funnily, the Chancellor’s office explained that Van der Bellen’s wording had not been coordinated with them and that determining whether international law had actually been violated was normally a matter for courts.

Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar reacted, saying Van der Bellen he should be ashamed.

Oskar Deutsch, president of Austria’s Jewish Community, said the president had taken sides by assigning responsibility to Israel while leaving Palestinian terrorist organisations, Iran and attacks on Israelis out of the picture.

The remarks are still sending ripples far beyond New York.

Austria, meanwhile, has a criminal offence called Herabwürdigung des Staates und seiner Symbole.

Publicly making the Republic contemptible can get you up to a year in prison.

So naturally the question is whether Van der Bellen now has to arrest himself?