Austria is also officially known as Republic of Austria. It is a landlocked country in Europe. According to the Constitution of the Republic of Austria, it is a democratic republic and its law emanates from the people. It is a federal State and it’s capital and seat of the highest federal authorities is Vienna. German is the official language of the Republic without any prejudice to the rights provided by federal law for linguistic minorities. The dialing code of this country is +43 and the currency is Euro.
Though in Austria majority of the population speaks German but other local languages spoken include Croatian, Hungarian, Slovene etc. Austria is a federal republic comprising of nine independent federal states. These states are also referred to as provinces which have their set of functioning and governance according to the need of the provinces.
Austria has a President who is the head of the State elected by the people of Austria. The President is called the Federal President of Austria. The Chancellor of Austria is the head of the Government. The Chancellors position can be said to correspond to that of the Prime Minister’s position in several other parliamentary democracies. As per law the Chancellor and the other members of the Austrian Cabinet are appointed or removed from the office by the Federal President of Austria.
As per the Constitution of The Republic of Austria, it is a Federal State and this federal nature can be changed only by referendum. The term referendum means a general vote by the electorate’s in a country or particular area on a particular political question or proposal of a law which has been referred to them for their direct vote.
The legislative and executive powers are shared by the federal and provincial governments simultaneously. Austria has bicameral legislative system which consists of two chambers namely: Federal Council and National Council. The legislative power of the federation i.e., the law-making power is exercised by the National Council jointly with Federal Council.