3.3.1 Justice and home affairs
Austria will play an active role in implementing and further developing EU policy in the field of
justice and home affairs. In doing so, it will work in close collaboration with its partners in the
“Salzburg Forum” in order to facilitate the process of protecting the security interests of Austria
and Central Europe. The objective of the “Salzburg Forum Vision 2020” resolution, adopted in
2010, is to achieve collaboration within the EU and regional cooperation in order to create a Central
European security cluster within the EU. It also aims at making a collective contribution to the
implementation of the EU strategy for external action, particularly in the Western Balkans and in
the eastern neighbourhood.
Other basic objectives of the Austrian EU policy include ensuring the protection of fundamental
rights and freedoms, developing a common security policy culture, strengthening cross-border
cooperation among police forces and developing a comprehensive model for the exchange of information. The policy also aims at developing and implementing a comprehensive approach towards
the issues of asylum, migration, integration and border management as well as combating illegal
migration, smuggling and trafficking in human beings and promoting inter-cultural dialogue.
The overall aim, as part of an active security policy, is to gradually create and actively shape an
“architecture of internal security” within the EU. This objective is to be pursued on the basis of
cooperation between the various authorities in the Member States and the European institutions.7
An important innovation contained in the Lisbon Treaty is the obligation to act jointly in a
spirit of solidarity if a Member State is the object of a terrorist attack or the victim of a natural
or man-made disaster. Steps must be made to expedite the establishment of a network of capabilities from the civil and military sectors, which Austria can also use to make its contributions
within this context.
3.3.2 Common Foreign and Security Policy
As a member of the EU, Austria will play an active role in shaping CFSP. It will also continue
to participate in the entire spectrum of CSDP activities referred to in the TEU,8 including the
EU Battlegroups, within the scope of its capabilities.
Austria will play an active role in planning, crafting and developing CSDP and will take
measures to promptly assess and secure opportunities to be instrumental. The same applies to
the stipulation contained in the Treaty of Lisbon regarding a common defence policy, which
may potentially lead to a common defence;9 it also applies to the establishment of permanent
structured cooperation,10 as well as to the country’s involvement in a strengthened European
Defence Agency in order to enable it to benefit from synergies in technological developments,
procurement and sales.11
The EU and its Member States are expected to make stronger efforts to organise the use of
resources for CSDP in a more economic, target-oriented and efficient manner. This will result
7
The European Police Office (EUROPOL), the European Union’s Judicial Cooperation Unit (EUROJUST), the
European Agency for the Management of Operational Coordination at the External Borders of the Member
States of the European Union (FRONTEX), the European Police College (CEPOL), the European Union’s Joint
Situation Centre (SITCEN), the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) and the Vienna-based European
Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) represent important elements here.
8
Article 43(1) TEU
9
Article 42(2) TEU
10
Article 42(6) TEU
11
Article 45 TEU
13