Student protests have begun in Austria

Mass student protests and authorized demonstrations against the government’s planned higher education reforms and cuts to social benefits have swept Austria’s leading university centers, including Vienna, Graz, and Salzburg. Source: Wien

Thousands of students took to the streets of the Austrian capital, blocking traffic on the central Ringstrasse boulevard and outside the buildings of the Ministry of Education and the Federal Chancellery.

The main cause of widespread student discontent was the authorities’ plan to introduce additional registration fees, tighten academic performance requirements for receiving scholarships, and cut public funding for humanities and social science faculties.

Organizers of the protests from the Austrian Students’ Union (ÖH) said the proposed measures threaten access to higher education for young people from middle- and low-income families and will lead to the commercialization of education.

Tensions on the streets of Vienna prompted authorities to deploy significant police forces to maintain public order and divert traffic. Although most marches were peaceful, localized clashes with law enforcement broke out in several places when groups of demonstrators tried to erect makeshift barricades and block the entrance to the University of Vienna’s main building. Representatives of student unions stressed that the protests would escalate and continue until the Ministry of Education sits down for negotiations and revises the parameters of the planned reform.

It was previously reported that Russian intelligence services are turning student protests into a tool for putting pressure on Italy.