The new measures are intended to give refugees a structured everyday life while also benefiting Austrian society.
The Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner has announced a package of new requirements that will apply to asylum seekers across Austria, including a new work requirement and a package of social obligations.
The new measures are intended to strengthen the integration of refugees and provide them with a clear grounding in Austrian values and social mores.
This means that refugees are obliged to do charitable work for the federal, state and local governments. However, they can also do this in companies with at least five community service workers, in the nursing service, in homeless shelters or winter service.
In addition, the “benefits card” trial under which asylum seekers receive support payments from the state will also be expanded in the next few days in a test in the state facilities in Upper Austria. The first pocket money should be transferred to this card this week.
Those who do not fulfil their obligations will have their state benefit payments docked.
“If you don’t do any charitable work, your pocket money will be reduced from €40 to €20,” Karner said. “That is one of the clear consequences.”
Asylum seekers will also be subject to a new “catalogue of obligations”. This will ensure migrants receive information about Austrian culture, values and social etiquette, as well as equality, democracy and anti-Semitism.
The expansive package of measures is intended to give refugees a structured and meaningful everyday life while also benefiting Austrian society as a whole, including by fostering social exchange between asylum seekers and the local population.
According to Karner, pressure on Austria’s basic care system is already being relieved by a tougher immigration policy that has dramatically lowered the number of people arriving.
As an example, he cited figures from the Austrian state of Burgenland. While in the first half of 2022, over 19,000 people arrived there from Hungary, only 10,000 arrived in 2023, and in the first six months of 2024 a mere 303. The number of asylum claims being made across the country, meanwhile, has fallen by 40%.
