Introduction:
The Austrian political system has certain specifics compared to other systems and it is a combination between a presidential and a parliamentary system. According to the constitution, the President is the Head of State who has considerable executive powers. In practice the government is of much greater importance because the President hardly ever makes use of his powers and in most cases he has to have the approval of the government in order to take action. Another very striking fact concerning the Austrian system is the important influence of institutionalised interest groups, the so called Social Partnership. Austria has four them “The Austrian Federal Economic Chamber” (WKO), “The Austrian Federal Chamber of Labour” (AK), “The Austrian Trade Union Federation” (ÖGB) and “The Austrian Chamber of Agriculture” (lk). These groups represent the interests of their members and they play a considerable role during the legislative process.
In the past, until the mid 1990’s the Austrian political landscape was characterised by a two party system, on the one hand the “Austrian People’s Party” (ÖVP) - Christian Democrat, and on the other hand the “Social Democratic Party” (SPÖ). Consensus between these two parties and the important influence of the Social Partnership characterised Austria for a long time, which led to an extremely stable system. Since the 90’s mostly due to structural socio-economic changes, the party landscape has undergone some modifications. The rise of the “Freedom Party” (FPÖ) and the growing success of the “Green Party” mostly in urban areas, led to a more diverse and dynamic system and the way politics was made changed quite considerably. Today the influence of the Social Partnership is more and more diminishing and the political culture has moved away from consensus to more competition.
In 1995 Austria joined the European Union which also contributed to changes because its then quite unique legal and political structure had to be adapted to the norms of EU-Law.
The Constitution:
The Constitution dates from 1920 and has been modified considerably in 1925 and 1929. Four important pillars characterise the Constitution of Austria:
• The Democratic Principle. Power has to be legitimated by the people through their democratic participation.
• The Republican Principle which says that the head of state has to be elected by general election.
• The Federal Principle. The executive power is shared between the federal government and the nine states (Vienna, Lower
Austria, Upper Austria, Burgenland, Styria, Carinthia, Salzburg, Tyrol and Vorarlberg). In practice this principle is very weak and
most of the powers are concentrated at the level of the federal government.
• The principle of the rule of law which means that public administration can only be based on law.
The Electoral System:
Basically there are three important elections, namely for the National Assembly, the Presidential Elections and the Elections of the State Parliaments. In addition there are also elections on the regional level and the elections for the European Parliament. Although Austria is in general a representative democracy there are some means of direct democracy like a plebiscite. In practice the plebiscite has only been used twice in the history of Austria. Nevertheless it is important to mention that it has to be used when the government intends a fundamental change of the Constitution – as it has been the case when Austria joined the EU.
Elections are held on the base of a proportional system and most important are the parliamentary elections which are held every four years. To receive a seat in the National Assembly a party has to gain at least 4% of the national votes or it has to win one regional constituency. As Austria has a proportional vote it is quite difficult (at least for small parties) to win a regional constituency because there is no winner takes all system.
The President is elected every six years in a general election and he has to receive and absolute majority of votes. This means that if there are more than two candidates in the first ballot, and nobody gets an absolute majority, a second ballot has to be made.
The role of the President:
The President is the Head of State, the Commander in Chief and he represents the country towards other nations. It is important to mention that although he is the Head of State he has no powers concerning the representation of Austria in the EU because this is competence of the government. The government and the President are separated and the most important power of the President is his right to appoint the federal chancellor and therefore the government.
In practice he usually authorizes the head of the party which has most of the votes with the construction of a stable government majority.
The President has the right to dismiss the federal chancellor and the government but no president has ever executed this. Therefore one can speak of a certain surrender of the President concerning his real executive power.
The Austrian President is thus more a symbolic figure which does not interfere with every day politics. When it comes to the appointment of a new government his role becomes nevertheless very important.
In theory the President could be dismissed by the Parliament but this would require a two-third majority in Parliament as well as a national referendum and is thus very unlikely to happen.
The Government:
The electoral system is likely to produce coalition governments because it is quite difficult for one party to obtain an absolute majority. In former times (ÖVP from 1966-70 and SPÖ from 1971-83) there have been one-party governments with an absolute majority but as today’s party structure is more diverse this has become very rare or almost impossible.
The government has great executive powers and the relation between the government and the majority in the parliament is very close. That’s why the separation of legislative and executive branch in Austria is rather fluent.
Apart from its executive powers, the government has also the right of initiative in the legislative process and the individual ministries work on draft bills which have to have the approval of the government and are then sent to parliament.
The individual ministries play an important role and the Federal Chancellor who is the Head of Government acts more like a “primus inter pares”. Nevertheless he has the right to nominate the ministers (who then need the approval of the President as well) and this gives him an important influence. He is also the one who sets the agenda and who co-ordinates the whole government activity. In a coalition government (which is mostly the case) he has to co-operate a lot with the Vice Chancellor who is often the head of the other party in parliament. This leads to the fact that the role of the Federal Chancellor is often that of a mediator between the parties in government. As the Federal Chancellor himself is likely to be the leader of his party he has lots of influence on the ministries of this party and therefore his position is more important than his official constitutional powers would lead to suggest. In practice he plays the most decisive role in the Austrian political system.
The Parliament:
The Austrian Parliament consists of two Chambers, the National Assembly (Nationalrat) and the Federal Council (Bundesrat). The Federal Council has a very limited role, because its members are elected by the State governments and not by general elections. During the legislative process it only has a suspensive veto and its importance is of a more symbolic character.
The real decisive chamber is the National Assembly which has the legislative power and consists of 183 Representatives. If the government has a stable majority in the National Assembly (which it usually has, because minority governments are an exception), it can be quite sure to have the approval on its proposed bills. Representatives are mostly following the intentions of their party concerning their votes in parliament, so parties and not the individual representatives play an important role in the Austrian parliamentary system. The rights of the opposition are relatively limited which is at times criticised. Nevertheless the opposition has the right to create a committee of investigation, which is a tool to control the activities of the government.
To conclude one can observe that there is only a limited system of checks and balances between the legislative and the executive powers because of the close ties between the government and its majority in the National Assembly.
The legislative process:
The Parliament has the right of initiative according to the constitution. In practice most of the drafts for bills are formulated by the government ministries themselves. Here it is important to mention that this level is also accessible for other actors, namely the Social Partners. Very often the Social Partners make suggestions for bills and they also help the government administration to formulate them. This represents a sort of co-operation between the Social Partners and the Administration and assures the influence of important interest groups in the legislative process.
A bill has to be approved by the government by unanimity and is then sent to the Parliament where it will be discussed and modified by the committees in the National Assembly. The National Assembly then has to approve the bill with a single majority vote (only constitutional bills require a two third majority). After the approval by the National Assembly there is a vote in the Federal Council (Bundesrat), the second chamber of the Parliament. This chamber only has a suspensive veto and can easily be overruled by the National Assembly. In other words the influence of the Federal Council is more symbolic than real.
After this process in Parliament described above, the President has to prove that the process of the approval of the bill has been consistent with the constitution. This does not mean that he has an influence on the contents of the bill; it is only a review of the formal criteria of the bill. After the approval of the President the Federal Chancellor signs the bill and it eventually turns into law.
The Controlling Bodies:
In Austria there are two important bodies which control the activities of the government. The Constitutional Court reviews the laws signed by the Federal Chancellor in order if their contents are consistent with the Constitution. If this is not the case, the Constitutional Court can declare laws unconstitutional and can therefore oblige the government to formulate a new bill.
The other controlling body is the General Accounting Office which reviews all the financial activity of the government.
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