State objectives? This government would push Zwentendorf through

The coalition wants to enshrine a "competitive economic location" in the constitution. That's undemocratic – and sadly an international trend

Let's try a thought experiment: it's 1978, and a building on the Danube is dividing the republic: the Zwentendorf nuclear power plant. The Kreisky government wants to bring the reactor online, but following pressure from a broad civic movement, the question ends up in court rather than being put to the public in a referendum, as actually happened historically. The court now has to weigh up which interests matter more: jobs and cheap nuclear power, or an intact environment and a nuclear-free Austria. With the amended state objectives, the answer would be clear: the Zwentendorf nuclear power plant would have to be approved in the name of "growth, employment and a competitive economic location."

Today, it's not about a nuclear power plant. The trigger for the planned constitutional law is the Federal Administrative Court's decision on the construction of a third runway at Vienna Schwechat Airport. The court banned the construction on the grounds of its impact on climate protection, citing, among other things, the Federal Constitutional Act "on sustainability, animal welfare, comprehensive environmental protection, securing water and food supplies, and research." The ruling was a major victory for environmental and climate protection. It also attracted international attention as one of the first decisions to give such weight to environmental protection in a balancing of interests.

Climate protection sidelined

Even back in 2017, the grand coalition made it clear that climate protection was a secondary concern for them. Not only did they push for the construction of the third runway, but they also wanted to amend the very constitutional act that had made the landmark decision possible. They didn't want it to happen again that a court would place the fight against climate change above short-term profit interests. The grand coalition's plan ultimately failed to pass through parliament before the snap election.

Now it seems the coalition is picking up the issue. On 7 March, the Council of Ministers decided that the existing Federal Constitutional Act on sustainability, animal welfare, comprehensive environmental protection, securing water and food supplies, and research should be supplemented with a state objective on economic location: "The Republic of Austria (federal government, states and municipalities) is committed to a competitive economic location as a prerequisite for growth and employment." "We need to be able to push certain projects through," Federation of Austrian Industries chairman Georg Kapsch said candidly to Der STANDARD.

Neoliberal politics

Aside from the fact that reactive constitutional amendments are never a good idea, the proposal is deeply problematic — not just from an environmental policy perspective, but also from a democratic one. Location competition is a popular vehicle for selling neoliberal policies as neutral practical constraints and pushing them through even against opposition. We all know the argument only too well: apparently we can no longer "afford" social standards, workers' rights, or even a minimal level of taxation on the super-rich, because otherwise our economic location suffers and capital and jobs will be lost.

Resistance to these austerity and impoverishment policies is growing, however. To secure their ideology and interests in the long term, neoliberal elites are writing seemingly neutral objectives into legal norms that are as difficult to change as possible. This happened at EU level with the Fiscal Compact, which not only forces member states into budget cuts but also seeks to enshrine a technocratic "debt brake" in their constitutions. The Fiscal Compact was concluded in 2012 as an international treaty because it couldn't be pushed through even under the EU's minimal democratic ground rules. Trade agreements like TTIP and CETA also make it harder — if not impossible — to reverse privatisations and liberalisations, create special litigation rights for corporations, and thereby weaken the democratic rule of law. Behind all these projects lies the same goal: neoliberal policies are to be binding beyond any given legislative term — even if democratic majorities and public opinion shift.

Wrong on democracy and environmental policy alike

The planned constitutional amendment isn't just wrong from a democratic standpoint. The government is also well off the mark on environmental policy: an intact environment, clean water, and healthy air are ends in themselves — we need them to live. The ecological destruction and the dangers of climate change are plain to see. There's no getting around the fact that prosperity and a good life need to be grounded in something other than growth and competition in the long run. But even if future environmental damage is weighed against economic interests, it has to be taken into account that we don't know exactly what that damage will mean in the future, or how our economy will develop. Going back to our thought experiment: if the new constitutional law existed, the courts would have had to approve the Zwentendorf nuclear power plant — because nuclear power was considered safe and brought jobs. Today, after Chernobyl and Fukushima, we're deeply relieved that the plant was never put into operation, and that no neoliberal state objective forced us to do so. (Ralph Guth, 15.3.2018)

This commentary originally appeared on the <link https: derstandard.at staatsziele-diese-regierung-wuerde-zwentendorf-durchboxen external-link-new-window internal link in current>Der Standard website.