Austria commits to neutrality, even as Russia destroys Ukraine, aljazeera.com

[…] However, Austria continues to sit on the fence and Vienna has no plans to join NATO despite the ongoing war.

Austria, a European Union (EU) member, partners with NATO in various capacities and the country has become more integrated into the EU’s security framework. In this context, some analysts label Austria as essentially a free rider, simply surviving by luck while remaining outside of NATO. Nearly six months into the Ukrainian crisis, there is no serious debate in Austria about officially joining NATO.

Eighty percent of Austrians support staying out of the Western alliance while the spirit of neutrality remains popular among Austrian politicians across the spectrum.

On March 7, Chancellor Karl Nehammer, a conservative politician, tweeted that Austrian neutrality is “not up for debate” and the leader of the center-left Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPO), Pamela Rendi-Wagner, frequently calls Vienna’s neutrality “non-negotiable.”

The right-wing Austrian Freedom Party (FPO) has the same pro-neutrality position and so does the pacifist Green Party. […]

Vienna – along with New York, Geneva, and Nairobi – has become a key office site of the UN, as well as the location for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). […]

Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said that Vienna is “helping [Ukraine] on a large scale but not with war munition and I think help for Ukraine cannot only be reduced to war munition.”

Along with 140 other UN member-states, Austria voted in favour of the March 2 General Assembly resolution condemning Russia’s invasion. […]

Worried about Austria’s exposure to Moscow’s ability to weaponise its energy exports, Vienna has joined fellow EU members in working to diversify gas sources away from Russia.

Since the war began, Austria has reduced the percentage of its Russia-sourced gas imports from 80 to 50 percent. Läs artikel