According to a recent People’s Party survey, Austrians strongly favor the current voting and citizenship laws, which are sometimes criticized by outsiders as being unduly strict.

According to the survey, over 75% of participants support keeping the current citizenship laws in place, and 2/3 strongly support the ten-year waiting time for citizenship and stringent requirements for dual citizenship.

Almost ninety percent of the participants stress how important it is for young people to successfully integrate. About two thirds concur that citizenship should continue to be a requirement in order to vote.

Moreover, just a small portion of people—roughly a third—are open to allowing immigrants who have lived in Austria for 15 to 20 years to vote.

This broad consensus highlights how important citizenship and the ability to vote are to Austrians, who understand that these rights are acquired via strict rules rather than being given to them lightly. Many people agree with Chancellor Nehammer’s vision for Austria, which is expressed in the Austrian Plan and highlights Austria’s cultural legacy as a priceless national treasure.

This agreement, according to Minister of Constitution Karoline Edtstadler, validates Nehammer’s goals as stated in Austria’s strategy. She emphasizes that the requirements for citizenship will not be loosened and that it is considered one of the most valuable possessions of the country and cannot be bestowed in an arbitrary manner; strict and open standards are necessary. This procedure still requires successful integration as a basic condition.

Statistik Austria revealed that the number of people granted Austrian citizenship in 2023 was 19,939, a 3.2 percent decline from 2022. Of them, almost 8,000 were non-Austrian citizens.

Director General of Statistics Austria Tobias Thomas commented on these findings, pointing out that the trend of increasing naturalization numbers will halt in 2023. The main cause of the dip is a 17.7% drop in the naturalization of National Socialism victims and their offspring.

Austria’s naturalization rate, which compares the number of non-Austrian citizens living in the country to the number of naturalizations, is still rather low at 0.7%. It usually involves giving up any other citizenship, significant fees (around €2,000), and a ten-year residency requirement.