I would just like to add that politico is part of Axel Springer SE and therefore trash.
Austria is required by its constitution to be neutral. This neutrality was forced on them by the Soviet union, which isn’t around any more, but there is currently no political will to change this.
IIRC the issue is that NATO doesn’t necessarily want Austria since their institutions are heavily infiltrated by Russian spies?
Infiltrated by Russian spies suggests, that this is not part of the countries policy. But every information that gets to Austrian intelligence ends up in Russia and Austrian intelligence helps European high profile criminals escape to Russia.
The truth is that Austria’s intelligence community is split. Various factions within the intelligence agencies and authorities proxy-fighting with each other resulted in a raid on the intelligence service, anonymous accusations and the becoming public of various scandals. But it’s obvious that not the whole intelligence apparatus is in the Russians’ pockets.
Why join and contribute when you can be a leech? Also, Daddy putin would not like one of its oblasts joining
Unfortunately, I don’t see any chance for that. The right wing nut job party is set to win the next elections and it is likely that the “moderate” party will form a coalition with them. Even suggesting to think about joining NATO at some point in the far future, would be political suicide.
