Overview
- Ministers will discuss a legal basis for prohibiting the application of religious law in legal disputes at a two-day retreat in Mauerbach starting Tuesday.
- The push follows a summer 2025 decision by the Vienna Regional Court for Civil Matters that allowed Sharia to inform a private property case.
- Chancellor Christian Stocker’s ÖVP is leading the initiative, with Stocker stating, “There will be no caliphate in Austria.”
- Legal scholars and integration experts call the plan largely symbolic and warn it could deepen polarization and stigmatize moderate Muslims.
- No draft legislation has been released, and the debate unfolds alongside other migration measures, including a headscarf ban for under‑14s, as an Interior Ministry survey reports majority support for stricter asylum policy.