As part of a hearing of experts, the State Defense Committee discussed the referendum, signed by 116,832 Austrians or 1.84% of those eligible to vote, which defends Austria's perpetual neutrality. Austria should therefore declare once again that it will not join any military alliance “in the future” and will not allow the establishment of military bases by foreign states on its territory.
The initiators Anatolij Volk and Werner Bolek, who were present at the commission, called on the deputies to take “the people's decision” seriously and not to “bury” neutrality like other referenda. The Austrian population understands neutrality as it was experienced before joining the EU.
Constitutional lawyers Peter Bußjäger and Marcus Klamert, invited as experts, spoke out against a renewed and identical anchoring of neutrality in the constitution. This makes little legal sense, says Klamert.
There was a cross-party agreement among deputies that neutrality must be maintained. However, there were different opinions regarding its design. While the SPÖ, the Greens and NEOS spoke in favor of a “further development” of Austria's neutrality policy in order to strengthen international cooperation, the FPÖ considered such efforts as a danger to neutrality itself. The ÖVP and Defense Minister Klaudia Tanner emphasized that Austria's neutrality also requires the Federal Army to be able to adequately defend itself.