Occupation of the Hainburger Au
The Occupation of the Hainburger Au wetlands in December 1984 marked a turning point for environmental awareness in German speaking central Europe and was of great significance for the development of democratic processes in Austria.
The Hainburger Au is a large naturally occurring flood plain bordering the
In February 1983,[1] the Austrian branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) began a campaign under the slogan "Rettet die Auen" to preserve the Hainburger Au flood plain. With the help of various media channels the WWF began to publicise the threat of impending destruction for a large part of the region. The threat came from plans, which at the end of 1984 still enjoyed the full support of the Austrian government,[2] to construct a hydro-electric power plant. As events unfolded, the nature of the protesters' demonstrations and a mass-occupation of the threatened area changed peoples' understanding of democracy as well as national energy policy in Austria.
History
Background
In 1983, the regional power generation company[3] announced to the Water Authority that the construction of Hainburg Hydro-power plant had been designated as a "preferred" hydro-project.[4][5] Under the Austrian Water Laws then in force, the "preferred" designation of the planned hydro-electric project gave it a special status "in the general [public] interest" [6] which would concentrate granting of the necessary regulatory approvals with a single authority, and correspondingly limit the number of stages in the process and the opportunities for appeal against decisions. After the authorisation process had been completed, construction work began at Stopfenreuth (Engelhartstetten) in December 1984.
The campaign
The
On 7 May 1984, the campaigners held a press conference at Vienna's
Occupation, confrontation and escalation
On 8 December 1984, the ÖH organised a mass demonstration which attracted about 8,000 participants. Several hundred remained behind at the Au, forcing a suspension of the site-clearance work.
The Hainburger Au was declared a "forbidden zone" and a controversial police intervention followed on 19 December 1984. Batons were used to clear an area of approximately 4 hectares (approx 10 acres), which were fenced off and placed under police surveillance. The action involved a confrontation between 800 police personnel and approximately 3,000 environmentalist occupiers.[8] Officially 19 people were injured, including members of an Italian television crew. That same evening some 40,000 people[9] demonstrated on the streets of Vienna to protest against the government's actions and against the building of the power station.[10]
Stand off
Two days later, on 21 December 1984, the national government formally imposed a suspension of the site clearance, and on 22 December 1984 Federal Chancellor Sinowatz, under pressure from public opinion and several influential media organisations (notably the mass-market Kronen Zeitung), announced a "Christmas Peace". Thousands of people spent their Christmas holidays at the Au. The priest Dr. Joop Roeland[11] (1931-2010) celebrated Christmas Mass with the environmentalist occupiers. At the beginning of January 1985 the High Court placed a prohibition on further site-clearing work pending a conclusion of the dispute, and the occupation ended.
Victory to the protesters
The number of signatures needed under the constitution for a "referendum" [12] had only recently been doubled from 100,000 to 200,000. The "Konrad Lorenz Referendum", on the proposal for the Hainburger Au to be protected as a designated National Park, took place in March 1985 and attracted 353,906 signatures.[citation needed]
On 1 July 1986, the Austrian "Supreme Court" finally annulled the earlier decision to allow the construction of the Hainburger Au hydro-electric power plant.[13]
Shortly afterwards the Trade Minister Norbert Steger pushed through two laws which between them more or less satisfied the demands of the "Konrad Lorenz Referendum".[14][15]
Implications for Austrian democracy
The Hainburger Au affair marked the first time that the role of successful civil disobedience was officially acknowledged as a valid component of direct democracy in Austria. In other respects, Hainburg was actually the second occasion on which a grass-roots democratic movement had used the device of a referendum to block the commissioning of a controversial power plant, the previous one having occurred in 1978 when the Zwentendorf Nuclear plant, having been built, never came on stream.[16]
For the
Subsequently, almost every major infrastructure project in Austria has been accompanied by its own Civilian Initiative movement. In 1996 the construction of a hydro-power plant at Lambach was delayed by a protesters' occupation (which actually lasted longer than the one at the Hainburger Au). 2003 saw a "symbolic" occupation to prevent the construction of tunnels under the Lobau (also part of the Danube-Auen National Park) which would be necessary for the completion of the outer ring road round the eastern side of the Vienna conurbation.[18]
Policy consequences for energy and environment
The events at the Hainburger Au raised the profile of environmental concerns, and they highlighted like nothing else the contrast between traditional "Conservative" and "Green" approaches, not only in Austria but also in neighbouring
It had become clear that for Austrians protecting the land was as important as energy security. National radio reported a "new environmental consciousness" ("neuen Umweltbewußtsein der Österreicher").[14]
For decades a succession of
The route towards a sustainable energy policy was already being set out in the mid 1980s. Austria itself is relatively poor in terms of conventional energy resources, and has only limited space available for extensive alternative energy sources. Nevertheless, the
Environment policy and the protection of nature more generally, since the 1979 designation of
Reading list (German language)
- Gundi Dick, u. a. (Hrsg.): Hainburg. Ein Basisbuch. 276.485 Anschläge gegen den Stau. Verlag für Gesellschaftskritik, Wien 1985.
- Ingrid Monjencs, Herbert Rainer (Hrsg.): Hainburg – 5 Jahre danach. Kontrapunkt – Verlag für Wissenswertes, Wien 1989.
References and notes
- ^ "Hainburg - "25 Jahre Hainburg - Courage lohnt sich...!"". 31 May 2010. Archived from the original on 31 May 2010. Retrieved 2 March 2019.
- ^ "DER SPIEGEL 52/1984 - Tag der Schande". Der Spiegel. spiegel.de. 23 December 1984. Retrieved 2014-09-26.
- ^ Österreichische Donaukraftwerke AG
- ^ "bevorzugten Wasserbau"
- ^ "Hainburger-Au-Besetzung". Austria-Forum. Retrieved 2 March 2019.
- ^ "im besonderen Interesse"
- ^ "PK der "Au-Tiere": 30 Jahre später - KURIER.at". kurier.at. 5 May 2014. Retrieved 2014-09-26.
- ^ "25 Jahre Hainburg - Fünfundwanzig Jahre Aubesetzung". 20-jahre-hainburg.at. Retrieved 2 March 2019.
- ^ "Die Auseinandersetzungen um den Bau des Donaukraftwerks Hainburg - Demokratiezentrum Wien". Archived from the original on 2014-05-23. Retrieved 2014-09-27.
- ^ Zeit im Bild Short video of contemporary news report (in Austrian German) with Horst Friedrich Mayer, dated 19 December 1984: (Zusammenstöße in der Hainburger Au. Österreichische Mediathek, V-00032)
- ^ Father Joop Roeland spent most of his working life in Vienna although he had a Dutch name and was of Dutch provenance.
- ^ Under the Austrian system a Volksbegehren (loosely translated as a "referendum") is an instrument of direct democracy whereby citizens can require a proposed law to be promulgated and enacted or rejected by the national parliament.
- ^ The laws in question were the Elektrizitätswirtschaftsgesetz (Electricity Economy Law") and the Energieförderungsgesetz ("Energy Demand Law")
- ^ Bernhard Natter (1987). "Die "Bürger" versus die "Mächtigen". Populistischer Protest an den Beispielen Zwentendorf und Hainburg". In Anton Pelinka (ed.). Populismus in Österreich (PDF). Vienna: Edition Junius. pp. 151–170.
- ^ The Green Party's 4.8% of the vote entitled the party to 8 of the 183 seats in the "Nationalrat" (parliament).
- ^ "Symbolische Lobau-Besetzung – Protestkundgebung gegen Autobahn durch Wiener Nationalpark". derStandard. 12 December 2003. Retrieved 2011-06-02.
- 2003 state election led to a black-green coalition between The Greens and Austria's mainstream right of centre party, the ÖVP.
- ISBN 978-3531156491
- ^ Waltraud Winkler-Rieder (1997), Herbert Dachs; et al. (eds.), "Energiepolitik" (pdf, demokratiezentrum.org), Handbuch des politischen Systems Österreichs (in German) (3. Aufl. ed.), Wien: Manz, pp. 619–627