Austria In The New Europe

First published in 1993, Contemporary Austrian Studies (CAS) is an academic publication appealing to a broad intellectual audience and fostering a multiplicity of views and perspectives. CAS's typical format features a number of essays on a special topic such as the impact of post-Cold War geopolitical developments and European integration on Austria in this issue (volume II will feature “A First Assessment of the Kreisky Era;” volume III will deal with “Austria in the 1950s”). Usually one or two “non-topical” essays will complete the main part.

Austria joined the European Union in 1995, with the overwhelming support of its citizenry. In June 1994, a record 66.6 percent of the Austrian population voted in favor of joining the Union, and Austria acceded on January 1, 1995. Only three years later, in the second half of 1998, Austria assumed its first presidency of the European Union. Its competent conduct of the Union's business enhanced its reputation. The sense that Austria was a role model collapsed overnight, after a new conservative People's Party (VP/FP) coalition government was formed in Austria in early February 2000. Austria became Europe's nightmare. This volume has two purposes. The first is to assess Austria's first five years in the European Union. The second is Austria's ongoing struggle with its past. Heinrich Neisser evaluates and assesses Austria's commitment to the European Union. Thomas Angerer offers a long-term perspective of regionalization and globalization trends in Austrian foreign affairs. Waldemar Hummer analyzes contradictions between Austrian neutrality and Europe's emerging common security policy. Johannes Pollak and Sonja Puntscher Rieckmann look at current debates over weighing future voting rights in the European Commission. Michael Huelshoff evaluates Austria's EU presidency in 1998 and compares it to the subsequent 1999 German presidency. Gerda Falkner examines the withering away of the previously much admired Austrian welfare state. Walter Manoschek scrutinizes the Nazi roots of Jorg Haider's Freedom Party. Michael Gehler critiques the EU sanctions and bemoans the absence of mediation through transnational Christian conservative parties. In reviewing how Austria deals with World War II, Richard Mitten investigates discourses on victimhood in postwar Austria and the place of Jews in this process. A "Roundtable" presents overwhelming evidence of Austrians' deep involvement in Nazi war crimes, and includes articles by Sabine Loitfellner and Winfried Garscha. This addition to the Contemporary Austrian Studies series will be welcomed by political scientists, historians and legal scholars, particularly those with a strong interest in European affairs. Gnter Bischof is professor of history and executive director of the International Studies Center at the University of New Orleans. Anton Pelinka is professor of political science at the University of Innsbruck and director of the Institute of Conflict Research in Vienna. Michael Gehler is professor of contemporary history at the University of Innsbruck. "Austria in the European Union is a highly detailed, expertly researched blend of history, economics, and a calculating appraisal of a nation's future within the context of the evolving European international collaboration. Austrian in the European Union is strongly recommended for European Studies, Political Studies, and International Relations supplemental reading lists and academic reference collections."- The Midwest Book Review

Notwithstanding the advantages of physical power, the struggle for survival among societies is not merely a matter of serial armed clashes but of the nation's spiritual resources that in the end always decide upon the victory. In Europe, there indeed exist independent countries, insignificant from the point of view of the entire civilization, and born by sheer coincidence, yet, this coincidence, this fancy, or diplomatic ploy that created them can just as easily bring them to an end---the nations that count in the political calculations are only the enlightened ones. Therefore, our nation should not merely grow in power, strengthen its character, and foster in people the feeling of love for homeland, but also---inasmuch as it is possible---breath the fresh breeze of humanity's general progress, feed it to the nation, absorb its creative energy. Until now, we have trusted and lived only in the weary conditions, conditions devoid of health-giving elements---now, as a result the nation's heart beats too slowly and its mind works too tediously. We ought to open our windows to Europe, to the wind of continental change and allow it to air our sultry home, since as not all health comes from the inside, not all disease comes from the outside.

Tourism in the New Europe addresses European tourism within the framework of an enlarged European Union of 25 members. It looks at the substantial reorientation of the organisational framework of European tourism and its profound implications for future structural and geographical patterns of development. Providing a series of thematic evaluations of the relationships between tourism and EU enlargement, this book includes a country-by-country examination of each of the new member states, in terms of their current patterns and trends of tourism development and the impacts which EU accession brings to them.