Beiträge zur Rechtsgeschichte Österreichs 11. Jahrgang Heft 2/2021, pp. 300-314, 2021/12/16
Die Kompetenzverteilung zwischen Bund und Ländern in Geschichte und Gegenwart
Ein Beitrag zur Rechtsgeschichte des österreichischen Föderalismus. Zugleich ein Beitrag zum 100. Geburtstag
des Bundes‐Verfassungsgesetzes
Key aspects of the Austrian system of federalism were not yet present in the Austrian Constitution of 1920 (the BVG). Rather they were forged by the profound challenges of the First Republic (fiscal, ideological and social) bbetween 1920 and 1929 and the resulting compromises that define Austrian federalism to this day. The legal distribution of competences between the Bund and the Länder in conjunction with a new model of judicial review allowed for conflicts to shift from the political to the legal arena, realizing a key aspect of Kelsenian legal thought. The dire state of public finances led to repeated constitutional compromises between the two major political parties, whose interests soon were at odds with their doctrinal stance on federalism: The centralist Social Democrats sought to safeguard the status of “Red” Vienna as an autonomous Land, while the federalist Christian Social Party found itself in control of the federal government. A constitutional reform in 1922 aimed at stabilizing the fiscal constitution. It would, however, be left to the major constitutional revision of 1925 to resolve most of questions on the future structure of federalism left open in 1920. 1929 would see one final major compromise before Austria’s descent into authoritarianism and ultimately totalitarianism. While these reforms and their foundations and reflections in legal scholarship were unable to save the First Republic, they created a stable framework for democratic federalism’s rebirth after 1945 and today’s multi‐level legal governance in the European legal area.
Keywords: Austrian Constitutional Court – Austrian constitutional revision 1925 – Austrian constitutional revision of 1929 – federalism – fiscal constitution – unfinished federalism
