It starts on March 11

Start for 14 referendums from Monday

Once a sufficient number of statements of support (at least 8969) have been collected, the proponents of a referendum can submit an application for initiation to the Federal Minister of the Interior.

(Bild: APA/HERBERT PFARRHOFER)

The registration week for 14 new referendums starts on March 11. Several of them are about preserving neutrality and lowering energy prices, while "Are you clever?" calls for publicly accessible knowledge tests for the federal government. Signatures are also being collected for a daily gym class, against glyphosate and against joining NATO. 

The petitions can be divided into areas such as the environment and sustainability (e.g. "Don't throw away food", "No to nuclear greenwashing"), foreign policy (e.g. "No NATO accession"), domestic policy (e.g. "Abolish party funding"), education (e.g. daily gym class) and health (e.g. expand intensive care beds). Lower energy prices and "no electric car obligation" are also called for.

Of the 14 referendums, the title "Are you clever" is particularly eye-catching. This petition wants future members of the federal government to have to take tests on their general and specialist knowledge. The results should then be publicly visible. 

Signature possible online

Since the law was amended in 2018, referendums can also be signed online and it is no longer necessary to go to the office. Since then, there has been a sharp increase in the number of referendums, from usually just one or even none per year to 19 referendums in 2023. This record could be surpassed this year with 14 petitions in March. You can find the list HERE.

The governing parties ÖVP and the Greens recently spoke out in favor of reforming the Referendum Act in order to prevent possible misuse.

While fees of around 3,400 euros are charged for registering and recording a referendum, the initiators receive five times these fees back if 100,000 signatures are reached.

With the increase in pet itions, the number of signatures has fallen significantly since 2018. While the 53 petitions received an average of 399,718 votes until 2017, the average number of signatories fell to 190,940 per petition after that.

The strongest petition in terms of votes was the one against the conference center in 1982 with 1,361,562 votes, while the most successful petition after the 2018 reform was the "Don't smoke" petition initiated by the Austrian Medical Association and Cancer Aid in 2018 with 881,692 votes (6th place on the best list).