By EUDO CITIZENSHIP expert Gerd Valchars.
On 24 April 2013 the Austrian Ministry of the Interior presented a completely revised version of Austria’s naturalisation test and the official preparation material. Since its introduction in 2006 the test and the preparatory script have been repeatedly criticised as faulty and incorrect and partly testing irrelevant knowledge. The test combined questions not only on history and polity of Austria and the provinces but also on geography, culture and tradition of Austria and the respective province where the test has to be taken.
Although the State Secretary in charge at the public presentation announced that in the future fewer “historical facts and details” will be asked for, the new test again includes an equal number of questions on the country’s history (going back until early Roman settlement) and its present constitutional principles and democratic order. The test’s third part contains questions about the federal province that is administering the applicant’s request for naturalisation. The competence to regulate the third part lies with the governments of the respective provinces and has not been changed at all. The test contains overall 18 multiple-choice questions, six questions for each part. To successfully pass the test candidates must correctly answer at least either half of the questions of each part or two thirds of all questions.
The new federal study guide, a 86-page booklet in German, is available online again. As a consequence of the ongoing critique the old one has been removed from the ministry’s homepage in 2011 but was still in use as the official preparation material and handed out as hard copy only to applicants. The preparation material now can be found on a new homepage run by the Ministry providing detailed information on the conditions for applying for Austrian citizenship and on the naturalisation procedure (in German only) as well as sample questions of the naturalisation test. The implementation of the revised naturalisation test will be part of an amendment to the Citizenship Law including several changes. The bill is currently about to enter the parliamentary process.
Together with the new study guide and the homepage the ministry also presented a brochure introducing “a set of core values” shared in Austria. The new brochure is available in German as well as in bilingual German-English, German-Turkish and German-Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian versions. Its target group are newly arrived or prospective immigrants. According to the ministry it is ought to help immigrants to “integrate into Austrian society from the very start” and to “build a bridge of integration” from arrival to naturalisation.
Links to the Official Homepage, the Federal Study Guide (in German), and the Brochure ‘United by our values‘ (in German and English).
In the German-speaking Media, read the articles in Der Standard, 24 April, Die Presse, 24 April 2013, and Mittagsjournal, Radio ORF Ö1, 24 April 2013, and the author’s commentary in der Standard.