REFORM PROPOSALS FOR RESIDENCE LAW DISGUISE FURTHER TIGHTENING OF FOREIGNER POLICY
Unable to silence the critics of the Austrian Law on Residence, in December the Interior Ministry finally came up with some reform proposals to take the heat out of the affair. Yet the proposed reforms (which are to be discussed in parliament in February) will bring only minor positive changes and leave the inhuman character of the law fully intact. Quotas for foreign workers, students and so on will stay as well. Together with a prior decision in November to lower the maximum percentage of foreign workers from nine to eight per cent (which will force about 30,000 people out of the job market), foreigners from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) have even harder times ahead.
On the positive side, the changes will stop the absurdity of counting Austrian-born babies of non-EEA-foreigners as new immigrants and make family reunification for Austrian citizens with non-EEA-relatives a bit easier. Both groups will be taken out of the general quota for immigration, which in a compensatory move has been set for 1995 at only 17,000 compared with 26,300 for 1994. (For so-called "seasonal workers", there will be an extra quota of 4,000 after 7,000 for 1994).
Further, the proposals will do away with the existing time limits and allow applications for a renewal of a residence permit until the last day of its validity.
However, as before, failing to apply in time will transform the forgetful applicant in a new immigrant, subject to the tight quota, and force her/him to leave the country and apply from abroad. Since the quota will be filled already early in the year (most of it by relatives of resident foreigners on a "waiting list") and the processing of an application can take several months, most victims of these regulations are in danger of losing their right of residence. Some built-in mechanisms to deport or criminalise foreigners will stay untouched as well, e.g. the possibility of denying or withdrawing a residence permit if the housing conditions or the income situation of a foreign worker/family are considered as being below local standards.
These regulations have to be seen in the context of a further tightening of the job-market for foreign workers, imposed already last November. The official aim of bringing down the percentage of foreign workers from 9 to 8 per cent will endanger thousands of well-integrated families of migrants as well. Although officials in the Ministries of Interior and Social Affairs try to play down this eventuality, it seems very likely that, for example, migrant youths leaving school (about 2,500 this year), female partners of foreign workers and Bosnian refugees with residence permits will have no chance of getting a work permit.
Successful protests seem to reflect weak government position
This move has met political resistance in the federal chamber and among some regional chambers of commerce, youth workers, Catholic priests and refugee organisations. The protests seem to have some impact: the Ministry of Social Affairs wants parliament to give it the power to decree regional and other exemptions of the 8 per cent quota targeted to special groups. A corresponding bill is announced for February.
The Ministry of Social Affairs is not alone in having to back down. After a kind of a "political veto" by the Austrian Highest Administrative Court, the Interior Ministry recently had to abandon its plans to abolish the right of appeal against decisions of residence authorities, a part of the reform proposals for the Residence Law. Every appeal would have gone directly to the Highest Court, a prospect apparently not appreciated by the judges.
The official zig-zagging seems to reflect the weak position of the ruling coalition of the Social Democrats (SPÖ) and the conservative People's Party (ÖVP), which is in danger of falling apart long before the next elections due in 1998. One problem is in-fighting of factions in both parties over the proposed budget cuts to lower the growing public deficit. Since the budget cuts will lower the income of the less well off disproportionately, the Social Democrats face strong resistance from union members. Inside the People's Party, there is a faction which apparently would prefer to form a small coalition with Jörg Haider's right-wing Freedom Party (FPÖ). Since Haider's position on foreigners is well known all over Europe, this outcome would be a worst-case scenario not only for Austria.
Robert Poth (Vienna)