{"id":15144,"date":"2022-03-24T14:18:32","date_gmt":"2022-03-24T13:18:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/?p=15144"},"modified":"2022-03-24T14:18:32","modified_gmt":"2022-03-24T13:18:32","slug":"carl-bildt-as-finland-and-sweden-consider-nato-membership-austria-clings-to-neutrality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/carl-bildt-as-finland-and-sweden-consider-nato-membership-austria-clings-to-neutrality\/","title":{"rendered":"Carl Bildt : \u00ab\u00a0As Finland and Sweden consider Nato membership, Austria clings to neutrality\u00a0\u00bb"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In the 1970s Austria used its neutrality to be a conduit between East and West, but there’s little sign of that now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

By\u00a0Liam Hoare<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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\"\"Protesters against the war in Ukraine outside the Russian embassy in Vienna. Photo by Thomas Kronsteiner\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Russia has proposed during peace negotiations that Ukraine commit to neutrality, just as the war has led other European states to question its merits. Majorities in Finland and in Sweden now support Nato membership. \u201cThere is no way back to a past of illusory neutrality,\u201d the former Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt\u00a0has argued. \u201cThe choice now is between remaining in a slightly uncertain in-between or recognising a new reality and taking the step into full [Nato] membership.\u201d<\/strong> Austrians too are thinking about their neutrality in a Europe forever changed by Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

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Austrian neutrality, like Finland\u2019s, is a product of the Cold War. When, in April 1955, a delegation led by the chancellor, Julius Raab, flew to Moscow to negotiate an end to the Allied occupation of Austria, neutrality was the price his government had to pay. On 25 October 1955 the last Allied troops left Austrian soil; a day later the country\u2019s parliament enacted the Declaration of Neutrality, committing Austria to \u201cperpetual neutrality\u201d and preventing the country from joining \u201cmilitary alliances\u201d. Ten years later 26 October was declared Austria\u2019s national day. Neutrality became integral to Austria\u2019s perception of itself as an \u201cisland of bliss\u201d \u2014 as Pope Paul VI described it to the Austrian president, Franz Jonas, in 1971 \u2014 and a bridge between East and West. After the Cold War Austria joined the EU along with Sweden and Finland in 1995. While those two countries are now Nato \u201cenhanced opportunity partners\u201d \u2014 the closest relationship short of membership \u2014 Austria remains on the periphery of the alliance as part of the larger, looser Partnership for Peace. Austrian military operations abroad have been limited to peacekeeping missions in the Golan Heights, Lebanon and the Balkans.<\/p>\n

Nato membership does have its supporters in Austria, in particular on the centre-right, and their position has been invigorated by Russia\u2019s war against Ukraine. Andreas Khol, a grandee of the conservative People\u2019s Party and its presidential candidate in 2016, argued in a recent op-ed that the Ukrainian case showed how \u201ca neutral or non-aligned state stands alone when it is attacked. No one would rush to its aid\u201d. Only those who are part of a military alliance would be protected in the end, he said. Austria \u201cmust choose between Nato membership or co-operation with an EU army\u201d.Yet even in a changing Europe, Khol\u2019s support for Nato membership remains a niche opinion. Three quarters of Austrians support neutrality, and over 80 per cent are opposed to Nato membership. Austria has come out firmly in support of Ukraine and against the Russian invasion, but in contrast to Sweden and Finland its leadership has been quick to shut down any discussion of abandoning neutrality. The chancellor, Karl Nehammer, of the People\u2019s Party, recently put it like this: \u201cAustria was neutral, Austria is neutral and Austria will also remain neutral.\u201d<\/p>\n

Support for neutrality spans the political spectrum. \u201cNeutrality has no expiration date,\u201d Pamela Rendi-Wagner, leader of the Social Democratic Party, wrote in response to Khol, \u201cand it has offered Austria security for 67 years.\u201d Challenging Khol\u2019s view that staying out of Nato leaves neutral states exposed, Rendi-Wagner argued that neutrality prevented countries like Austria from being sucked into conflicts between military alliances as the United States, Russia and China compete to preserve or expand their spheres of influence. \u201cNeutral states do not represent a threat to great powers,\u201d she concluded, \u201cand that strengthens our security.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the original article on the site of the New Statesman<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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In the 1970s Austria used its neutrality to be a conduit between East and West, but there’s little sign of that now. By\u00a0Liam Hoare Protesters against the war in Ukraine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15023,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[153],"class_list":["post-15144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-room","tag-153"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}