Vienna has been in an uproar following a push by President Alexander Van der Bellen to aid Ukraine in demining its territory, reinvigorating an elite debate on the country’s neutrality in military matters.
On Friday, Austria’s president, whose role is largely ceremonial, proposed that the country come to the aid of Ukraine in more concrete terms.
“Support in demining civilian areas such as homes, schools, kindergartens or agricultural areas certainly does not contradict Austrian neutrality, but is a humanitarian matter,” the former green politician told APA on Friday.
The conservatives, the Greens’ partner in government, reacted harshly to the president’s words.
It is currently impossible to “distinguish between humanitarian and military demining” in Ukraine, Defence Minister Klaudia Tanner (ÖVP, EPP) told Ö1.
“No Austrian soldier will enter Ukrainian soil for such an operational mission as long as it is a war zone,” Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP, EPP) said after Tanner’s statement.
Critics of the government’s hardline position on de-mining aid to Ukraine have noted that aiding in removing anti-personnel mines could be possible through intermediaries like NGOs and may not require the deployment of soldiers.
The global Anti-personnel Mine Treaty, also known as the Ottawa Convention, was chiefly engineered by a push from an Austrian diplomat. It entered into force in 1999.
Observers of the political debate see the discussion as linked to the ongoing low-intensity discussion on the future of Austria’s neutrality.
Early last year, Austria’s chancellor curtailed a debate on Austria’s neutrality by a de facto decree. Others, like his party colleague and European Parliament Vice-President Othmar Karas, have called for a debate on neutrality.
Tanner laid out the careful neutrality balancing act in an interview with EURACTIV last year.
(Nikolaus J. Kurmayer | EURACTIV.de)
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