Austria’s integration minister will not rule out that a ban on political Islam reaches the IGGÖ

In an interview with Austria Presse Agentur published on Saturday 5 September, Claudia Bauer (ÖVP), Federal Minister for Europe, Integration and Family, said she would push to ban the Muslim Brotherhood and further Islamist organisations as part of a planned prohibition of “political Islam.” Brotherhood symbols are already banned in Austria, she noted, but associations can still be founded — the gap she says requires legislation. FoB News reports her list also names Hezbollah and Hizb ut-Tahrir. Asked whether such a law could catch the Islamic Religious Community in Austria, the IGGÖ, Bauer answered: “Ich glaube, man kann es nicht ausschließen” — I think one cannot rule it out. That sentence, not the Brotherhood, is what made it a week-long story. derStandard reports Bauer is currently working on a draft. No text, no timetable and no legal instrument has been published.

The response was immediate and came from more than one direction. IGGÖ president Ümit Vural demanded a clear, legally clean definition so that the entire religious community is not placed under blanket suspicion — Generalverdacht — as reported by katholisch.at on 6 September and by derStandard. The same day Bauer’s interview appeared, the ten Islamic Kultusgemeinden under the IGGÖ umbrella issued a joint statement rejecting her remark and restating that the IGGÖ and its Kultusgemeinden are legally recognised corporations under public law. Vienna’s mayor Michael Ludwig (SPÖ) criticised Bauer publicly — criticism from her federal coalition partner’s city leadership, not only from Muslim bodies. The pattern is continental. Jordan Bardella, president of Rassemblement National, again demanded around 9 September that France close mosques he says the Brotherhood controls and ban the group outright, per Brussels Signal, a right-leaning Brussels outlet reporting his own position.

Assessment: Two speeds are visible here. National parliaments and ministers keep producing declarations; the European Commission keeps declining to act on them. The French National Assembly voted 157–101 on 22 January for an EU listing procedure; the Dutch House passed its own motion in March with 76 MPs behind it, though the AIVD does not treat the Brotherhood as a structured organisation in the Netherlands, which quietly guts enforcement. Oral question O-000009/2026 records the Commission sticking to leaving the initiative solely to member states. Austria’s constitutional route would need a two-thirds Nationalrat majority nobody has yet counted. Until an Entwurf exists, this is a minister’s interview, not a law.