As a constitutionally neutral country, Austria has not restricted itself to humanitarian and financial aid to Ukraine but has not gone further than delivering helmets, however, leading members of the two government parties are split on whether demining Ukrainian territories would violate the neutrality principle.
Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen slammed the government for hesitating to help to demine Ukraine after Defence Minister Klaudia Tanner ruled out support in this area due to the country’s neutrality.
“I do not understand why the federal government is still hesitating on the issue of demining,” Green president Van der Bellen, who is the chief commander of Austria’s armed forces, told the Austrian Press Agency (APA) on Thursday. The Greens are the junior party in government.
“Support in demining civilian areas such as homes, schools, kindergartens or agricultural areas certainly does not contradict Austrian neutrality, but is a humanitarian matter,” he added.
But Defence Minister Klaudia Tanner from the conservative ÖVP, the leading government party, ruled out demining support. In an interview with Ö1, she argued that, in Ukraine, it is “impossible to distinguish between a humanitarian and a military demining.”
Most international law experts, however, agree that sending personnel to help in demining would not violate the neutrality principle as long as Vienna would act in the context of an EU mandate.
Austria’s neutrality and its repercussions for the aid the country does or does not give have repeatedly been cause for debate since the start of Russia’s war of aggression.
(Julia Dahm I EURACTIV.de)
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