The Austrian government is preparing a reform of criminal legislation in the field of counterintelligence and anti-espionage—one of the most comprehensive in recent decades. The Ministry of Justice has developed a package of amendments aimed at closing legal loopholes that foreign intelligence services, primarily Russian ones, have long exploited with impunity on Austrian territory.
Current legislation criminalizes espionage only when it is directly directed against the Austrian state. This leaves a wide range of intelligence activities outside criminal prosecution: collecting information on OPEC, the IAEA, the OSCE, and UN institutions located in Vienna, as well as surveillance of foreign diplomats or opposition figures. Formally, such operations do not violate Austrian law, which for decades has made Vienna a convenient hub for operations by Russian intelligence services.
The proposed changes significantly expand the definition of espionage. In particular, intelligence activities carried out in the interests of foreign services against the European Union and other international organizations operating in Austria will fall under criminal liability. The concept of “harm to Austria’s interests” is also being redefined—it will now include not only threats to state institutions but any actions capable of harming the country’s security, international reputation, or economic well-being. For prosecution, the mere possibility of such harm will be sufficient, without the need to prove actual damage.
A separate focus of the reform is the criminalization of recruitment for foreign intelligence services and voluntary consent to such cooperation. This measure is primarily aimed at countering the practice of recruiting so-called low-level agents—individuals approached via social media to carry out auxiliary intelligence tasks. Such schemes have been actively used by Russian intelligence in EU countries since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In the medium term, the adoption of these changes will strengthen the capabilities of Austrian intelligence services to detect, prevent, and investigate espionage operations, including those targeting international organizations in Vienna. Austria’s initiative may also serve as a catalyst for expanding counterintelligence tools at the EU level and for systematically reducing the risks of Russian hybrid influence across its member states.
