Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg reiterated his country’s neural stance with regard to military action at an event in Spain on Monday amid repeated international criticism for its dependency on Russian gas and reluctance to rethink its security policy.
Schallenberg underscored Austria’s stance regarding military assistance, articulating the country’s approach to neutrality.
“We are a neutral country. It is in our constitution,” Schallenberg said at a discussion event in Santander, adding that by “constructive abstention” within the framework of EU military aid, however, Austria could enable arms deliveries to Ukraine, Kronen Zeitung reported.
“We are funding more on the humanitarian side,” he stated. “But to be clear, we may be militarily neutral, but Austria has never been neutral when it comes to values,” he added.
A “rules-based international order” would be the best protection, the foreign minister tweeted in English.
Austria’s neutrality is repeatedly a topic of discussion, with opposition parties and experts criticising the government for its reluctance and recently calling on it to reevaluate its position, especially after Sweden and Finland’s bid to join NATO.
Moreover, The Economist ranked Austria second on the list of “Vladimir Putin’s useful idiots” in July, mainly because of the Alpine country’s continued heavy dependence on Russian gas, as 60% of imported gas currently still comes from Russia, the data regulator E-Control told Ö1 in June.
As a result, the conservative-Green government was heavily criticised by energy experts, opposition parties and the European Commission for a lack of concrete plans for decoupling from Russian gas.
(Chiara Swaton | EURACTIV.de)
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