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Austria Domestic Issues
Kreisky's style and tone struck a chord with the Austrian
electorate, and his personal popularity was enhanced by the
country's economic prosperity in the 1970s. His legislative and
economic program was built on the existing political consensus
and ratified by the social partners. Many measures continued to
pass unanimously in the Nationalrat. Employee benefits were
expanded, the workweek was cut to forty hours, and legislation
providing for equality for women was passed. The period of
mandatory military service was cut from nine months to six
months. Three issues, however, divided the country: abortion,
nuclear power and environmental damage, and ethnic minority
rights.
In 1973 the SPÖ passed a law over the opposition of the ÖVP
and the FPÖ that legalized abortion on demand during the first
trimester. Popular opposition backed by the Roman Catholic Church
manifested itself in a petition drive that helped bring the issue
before parliament again in the spring of 1976. The law, however,
was upheld.
In the early 1970s, the international energy crisis triggered
by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
oil cartel and the Arab oil embargo exposed Austria's
vulnerability to imported energy supplies. To reduce this
vulnerability, Kreisky continued the construction of a nuclear
power plant at Zwentendorf, sixty kilometers from Vienna, and
planned the construction of three other plants. As the
Zwentendorf facility neared completion in the late 1970s,
however, the public expressed growing concern about the safety of
nuclear power. The SPÖ did not want to alienate the environmental
movement and its bloc of voters, but it also needed to satisfy
its trade union constituency, which favored the project. The
issue was settled by means of a national referendum on November
5, 1978. Despite Kreisky's vigorous campaign for the plant, the
electorate narrowly rejected opening the plant.
Seeking to implement provisions in the 1955 State Treaty
regarding the rights of the country's Croat and Slovene minority
communities, parliament enacted a law in 1972 to erect duallanguage signs wherever the minority population of a locality was
at least 20 percent. Such signs were placed in some 200 of the
2,900 towns and villages in Carinthia. With the support of local
officials and police, however, the German-speaking population
reacted violently and ripped the signs down, reflecting lingering
hostility provoked by Yugoslav efforts to annex the province
after World War II. In an effort to resolve the matter, the
government took a census in 1976 to determine Carinthia's ethnic
make-up. Because the Slovene population had declined greatly
since 1914, when it accounted for 25 percent of the total
populace, Slovene leaders called for a boycott of the census, and
the results were not considered reliable. Dual-language signs
were erected in 1977 where the local minority population was
believed to be over 25 percent.
Data as of December 1993
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