Situation in Austria
In Austria, the most important legal form of citizens’ organisations are associations, there are about 110.000 of them registered. The existing law relating to associations from 1850 was renewed in 2002, following an Initiative of the Ministry for Internal Affairs during the European Year for Volunteers 2001.
Civic organisations take part in advisory councils and mutual projects, especially in the health and social service sectors, but this participation is not a written or guaranteed one it is more “tradition”. There is no ministry or other official institution in Austria that has been designated as an official contact or reference point for civil society organisations. But a long tradition of informal partnership and co-operation exists, which was extremely influenced by political parties (and the catholic church) and resulted in an unusual interdependence of public bodies and the civil society sector. Generally much of typical civic activism like advice or lobbying used to be done by the members of the so called Social Partners (“Sozialpartnerschaft”), which is in practice a very important factor of the politics and on of the basic elements of all kinds of partnership in Austria since the second world war.
Most civil society organisations would welcome a general agreement to regulate participation of NGOs in decision making processes of public authorities, but the criteria would have to be sufficiently open not to exclude small organisations and flexible enough to adapt to the changing needs of society. The most vivid development regarding citizens’ participation is a result of the efforts of the so-called Ministry of Life, a consortium of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management. For a long time they have been working on participation and sustainable development, also including NGOs’ opinions and ideas. One result of this process was the creation of standards of citizens’ participation www.partizipation.at.
Source: The World of NGOs, Austria, www.ngo.at
The World of NGOs
Is an information and networking platform for the civil society sector in Austria. It is the only networking organisation dedicated to the generic view on a horizontal level. 60 member organisations, of which many are umbrella organisations but also individuals who are interested in supporting the Third sector to develop.
Founded in: 1997
Based in: Vienna
Contact: office@ngo.at
Link: www.ngo.at