Youth participation in Austria

Is there a national youth council, representing young people in your country? If yes, please provide the name, number of member organisations and number of young members.

YES, Österreichische Bundesjugendvertretung (Austrian National Youth Council), 48 organizations, 85.000 members

 

Is there a ministry dealing concretely with the youth affairs in your country? If yes, please provide the name of the ministry.

YES, Österreichisches Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft, Familie und Jugend, BMWFJ (Federal Ministry of Economy, Family and Youth)

 

Does the government in your country has a specific youth policy/youth strategy?

YES

 

From what age are young people allowed to vote in the elections? If different age for different elections (parliamentary, local, regional, etc.), please specify.

Young people are allowed to vote from 18 years old.

 

From what age are young people allowed to be elected in the elections to the representative bodies? If different age for different elections (parliamentary, local, regional, etc.), please specify.

Generally, also from the age of 18 years. There are however representative bodies with younger people as well.

 

Are there any youth participation initiatives at the local level (in municipalities), e.g. local youth parliaments/youth councils, meetings of young people with decision-makers? Please describe.

There are local youth parliaments and also so-called youth clubs, which more or less initiate political activities.

 

Are there youth participation/decision-making bodies at schools, e.g. school parliaments, student councils, etc.? Please describe.

In schools as well as in university there are decision-making bodies in form of councils and parliaments. The students, respectively pupils, can elect other students to get into this council with on the other hand represents the school/university on a wider local range.

 

Are there are youth parliaments or other youth participation bodies on the national level? Please describe.

Two times a year the president of the Austrian parliament, Barbara Prammer, invites school classes of one province to visit the parliament and discuss contemporary youth-issues. One can experience the daily life of politicians, get to know them and discuss with them.

 

Is there any kind of education to youth participation/active citizenship included in the school curricula in your country, e.g. civic education? Please describe.

Yes, there is political education in school which is part of the subject history. It depends very much on the teacher, how serious this is taken and how detailed the pupils learn about political systems etc.

 

Do media inform about youth issues? Are young people involved in media and their production, e.g. as journalists? Please describe.

In media youth issues are topics when there is a contemporary issue. And in one newspaper, “Der Standard”, there is a forum for young people, where young people, mostly pupils, write articles about interesting matters.

 

Are there youth information centres, official youth websites or other sources of youth information available for young people? Please describe.

Yes there are some forums online, like “jugendinfo.at”, where one can get information about youth-relevant questions, from A to Z. And every political or religious organisation has its own youth homepage.

 

Are young people in your country informed about the European youth policy and its priorities? What do you think can be done to make young people aware about this? Please describe.

In general, there are not many people in Austria who are really informed about European policy. And less young people, I think. I think a good way to make young people interested in this, would be, to talk to them about that in school. And to inform in school about projects like this.

 

Author: Javi Menéndez Romano, Simon Falk
E-mail: estafilla@hotmail.com, simon_falk@web.de

The surveys were submitted by the participants of the YouthVoice project from the respective EU Member States. The questionnaires were part of their preparation for the Youth Voice project and each national group had to undertake a small research about youth participation in their country. The organisers cannot guarantee correctness of the answers.