Austria between West and East

Austria is located in the heart of Europe.Historically, this was both an advantage and a disadvantage.At times, it was an advantage since Austria could serve as a gate between West and East.At times, it suffered from the political tensions stemming from the important geopolitical position.There has been a tension between a geo-economic orientation towards Western and Eastern Central Europe that has been a constant of her recent history.It seems to us that Austria's geo-economic and geo-political strategies have some interesting features to the Korean public since it was at the border between East and West in the era of the cold war.However, it is necessary to delve deeper into the past in order to understand the post-war policies.During the last days of the Habsburg Empire, Austria was economically clearly looking to the East.It struck the shaky World War I alliance with her Western neighbour, Germany in order to preserve her influence in Eastern Europe.The break-up of the Empire was quite dramatic for Austria.The ruling circles had to adapt economically and politically to the policies of a small state.Economically, Austria tried to maintain a zone of influence in the East.Politically, the ruling circles incessantly discussed the pros and cons of a Danubian Federation with the successor states to the empire and a closer alliance with Germany.Both options were aimed at preserving economic influence in the East European neighbouring states.From 1938 to 1945, Austria was merged with Nazi Germany.This merger was effected forcibly, but German Nazism had a mass following in Austria so that resistance to the merger was minimal.Due to this, Austria regained her sovereignty only in 1955.This was conditional on a declaration of political and military neutrality in the East-West conflict.At times, Austrian governments translated Austria into a political bridge between West and East while seeking greater economic integration with Western Europe, mainly Germany.With the end of the cold war, economic integration was followed by political integration into the European Union.At the same time, new economic possibilities emerged in the East.Austrian companies were quick to (re-)establish themselves in Eastern Europe.Politically, the Austrian government is, however, hesitating between functioning as a gate or a bulwark of the West towards the East.These phases of the Austria's geo-economic and geo-political strategies will be discussed in the article.At the end, we shall discuss the policy options for the future.Austria at the Heart of the Habsburg Empire The Habsburg Empire of Austria-Hungary was one of the great European Empires.Like the Russian and Ottoman Empire, it lasted into the 20 th century.However, there were symptoms of being out of date already in the mid-19 th century.The aborted bourgeois revolution of 1848 opened the eyes of the ruling circles of the empire to the out-modedness of the state apparatus.They initiated a thorough reform and uniformisation of the state.This posed the question of the relationship between the two halves of the Empire, the Austrian and the Hungarian one.In 1867, they found a complicated compromise that entailed inter alia a customs union and a monetary union that had to be renegotiated every decade.This Austro-Hungarian settlement laid the foundation to a complementary division of labour in the empire.Vienna was its uncontested financial centre and important industrial location which was specialised in the production of luxury goods for Eastern Europe, of transport equipment, and, later, of electro-technical equipment.In the years after the financial krach of 1873, Viennese banks primarily lent to the Austrian and Hungarian state.The Hungarian state used these funds not in the least to foster industrial development, esp. in the agro-based industries.From the 1890s, Viennese banks began to commit themselves increasingly in a