Back in 2008, the SPÖ and ÖVP government program promised the introduction of the Central Civil Status Register (ZPR), which would replace the anachronistic maintenance of birth, marriage, and death records in municipalities. Now, the bureaucratic burden for citizens is actually to be eliminated, but the six-year lead time was apparently not long enough.
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Google+
While the launch of the ZPR is now set in stone on November 1st, last Wednesday the National Council hastily issued an authorization for Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner (ÖVP), which just once again permits the “temporary maintenance of civil status records” by decree. The regulation itself was also tinkered with at the last moment, and the provision stating that deceased children weighing less than 500 grams at birth should not have been considered persons was overturned.
Announcements every year
The path to the ZPR in Austria is a story of unimplemented announcements. The promise made in the 2008 government program was initially unfulfilled for years. It was announced again in 2011, and again in 2012. In 2013, it was even announced for April of the same year. Finally, the start was postponed to November 1, 2013. In September 2013, the Interior Ministry ignored warnings from the civil servants’ union about “chaotic conditions,” saying there was still “sufficient time” to prepare.
Now, a year later, the time for preparation was apparently still not “sufficient”: registrars once again warned of chaotic conditions, but the Interior Ministry apparently did not want to subject itself to another – official – postponement. “The system still doesn’t work. At some training courses, registrars go home empty-handed because the program cannot be launched,” warned Angela Lueger, SPÖ National Councilor and Vice Chair of the Municipal Employees’ Union, to the “Wiener Zeitung” newspaper at the end of September.
Comprehensive data sets in thousands of hands.
The typically Austrian solution, where a system is officially launched but de facto everything might remain the same, was inevitable from Lueger’s perspective. Last week, she criticized the system in the National Council for still having “many teething issues.” The FPÖ (Freedom Party of Austria) argued that the necessary data quality was not present. Data protection advocates have also been warning for a year that comprehensive data sets on every single person will be accessible from across Austria – more on this at oesterreich.ORF.at.
Birth, civil status, gender, legal name issues, partnerships, parents and children, as well as custody arrangements, origin, and citizenship are to be consolidated into universally accessible and manageable data sets starting November 1st. At the same time, the citizenship register will also be centralized. This will ultimately mean the elimination of cumbersome administrative procedures for citizens, as well as for registry offices. Social insurance providers, courts, and hospitals will also have access to the data. A
highly complex task, but achievable
. In 2012, then-Vice Chancellor Michael Spindelegger (ÖVP) estimated the cost of introducing the ZPR at €6.5 million, with annual savings from eliminating “over a million letters per year” at €2 million. The Interior Ministry never provided any details on the reasons for the delays—neither under Minister Maria Fekter (ÖVP) nor now under Mikl-Leitner. It is undisputed that the task is highly complex.
The 1,500 authorities previously responsible for maintaining civil status data did so according to their own rules, with their own systems, and their own data collection methods. Germany, which faced the same problem due to a shared history of Nazi administrative law, may have chosen the better path: In 2006, it was decided there to begin digitization in 2009, parallel to the traditional civil status registers. The five-year transition period expired without any problems on December 31 of the previous year.
“ORF NEWS”
