RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL -Austria is the first country in the EU to introduce compulsory vaccination for adults aged 18 and over. A bill to this effect was approved by parliament with a broad majority.
137 members of parliament voted in favor, 33 against. Health Minister Wolfgang Mückstein (Greens) spoke of a “forward-looking step” in the fight against the pandemic. It was a “decision for a return to coexistence as we knew it before the pandemic”.
The leader of the opposition Social Democrats (SPÖ) also supported the plan. “Vaccination saves lives, your own and the lives of others,” said SPÖ leader and epidemiologist Pamela Rendi-Wagner. Although the government had failed to do much in the past two years, the vaccination gaps could now only be closed with compulsory vaccination.
The liberal Neos demanded a roadmap for lifting the restrictions on freedom. The right-wing FPÖ is the only parliamentary group to oppose it. “The introduction of this constraint is a gigantic attack on the freedom of people in Austria, an attack on the human dignity of the population,” said FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl.
Compulsory vaccination is to apply from February. Pregnant women and persons who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons, as well as convalescents, are exempt from mandatory vaccination for six months.
The checks are to be carried out from mid-March. Vaccination refusers will then face fines of between 600 and up to 3600 euros.
Even before the meeting began, a broad majority in favor of mandatory vaccination had emerged.
The new regulation in Austria is the most far-reaching in the EU to date. Italy and Greece have mandatory vaccination for the elderly.
MASSIVE PROTEST THROUGHOUT EUROPE
In Europe, there is a massive protest and resistance movement of millions of people who are aware of what is at stake here.
“These people are aware of the fact that Europe’s constitutional rights are being suspended without an end date and that the continent is heading toward a new system, a tyrannical regime of mass surveillance and control,” Eva Vlaardingerbroek, a legal philosopher from the Netherlands, told Fox News.
What will happen in Austria on Thursday is a landmark case that will determine whether Europe will continue to be part of the free West for much longer, she added.