Abstract
Austria’s relations with the European Union (EU) have been somewhat ambivalent since the country’s accession in 1994. Although more than two-thirds of those who voted in the respective referendum favoured accession, public attitudes to the EU became more critical soon after accession and have remained well below the EU average ever since. In a recent Eurobarometer (European Commission, 2012d), only 31 per cent saw EU integration as a ‘good thing’ against an EU average of 50 per cent. This fragile relationship was further challenged in 2000 when the then EU-14 imposed bilateral sanctions on the governing coalition, of the Austrian People’s Party (OVP) and the right-wing populist Austrian Freedom Party (FPO), which were seen by a large majority of Austrian citizens as unjustified interference with the country’s sovereignty (Ulram, 2002).
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