Austria's Commitment to the 2030 Agenda

ACTIVE ON NATIONAL LEVEL
DIALOGUE WITH POLITICS
based on a motion for a resolution of the
Constitutional Committee concerning the
“increased involvement of Parliament in
the implementation of the SDGs” by MP
Petra Bayr (SPÖ). Therein, Bayr had called
for all MPs to be regularly informed about
the current status of the implementation
of the SDGs by the federal government. All
MPs should consider the 2030 Agenda as a
“guiding principle”. It was stated during the
debate that a regular discourse on various
inter-disciplinary matters should be held at
all parliamentary committees. In addition,
a cross-party working group was suggested
as a platform for exchange. During the
parliamentary debate, it was requested that
regular, retrospective but also prospective
reports on the SDG implementation by
the federal ministries shall be submitted
to the Austrian National Council.
SDGs as part of the impact assessment
of new legislation
In order to further integrate the SDGs,
the National Council decided on March
2, 2023 to integrate the SDGs into the
legally binding impact assessment of
legislative projects. Accordingly, the
federal government is now called upon
to submit a bill as soon as possible that
makes the implementation of the SDGs
in the law-making process mandatory in
advance, in addition to the existing impact
assessment, as an integral part of the bills
submitted to parliament under federal
budget law.
In Austria, the SDGs have already been taken
into account voluntarily in impact-oriented
management at the federal level since 2021,
initiated by the 1st VNR: In this context, the
SDGs are linked to or subordinated to the
already existing budgetary impact goals
defined by the ministries. In this way, it is
shown which SDGs are also fulfilled by the
impact goals and a transparent monitoring
system is made available, which observes
central SDG activities of the departments,
makes them comparable and documents
them in measurable indicators. So far,
however, the impact goals have taken first
place instead of anchoring the SDGs as
independent goals in the budget.
Therefore, the decision of the National
Council on a mandatory SDG impact
assessment is an important step towards
integrating the SDGs centrally in budgeting
and in new regulatory projects and thus
as independent goals. Thus, a further
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