NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE

‘N
ecessity has no law.” This maxim was quoted on the arrest of Richard II in 1399. Nowadays, this ancient truism seems somehow increasingly pertinent in Austria — and elsewhere. On December 6, the Austrian government will put a draft emergency law up for a first reading in front of the National Council, Austria’s lower house, to enforce a coronavirus-vaccine mandate. The aim is to have the emergency law on the books by February 1, 2022.

Indeed, this process has already begun, with a classic bureaucratic “roundtable” that will bring all the right stakeholders together. The outcome, Soviet-style, has already being determined. …