President of Austria - Responsibilities

Responsibilities

Though technically wielding powers comparable to that of the chief executives of presidential systems, in practice Austria operates under a parliamentary system of government, and the federal president is more a figurehead than an actual head of government.

In constitutional theory, the president has free rein in appointing the head of the federal cabinet and, by extension, free rein in appointing federal cabinet ministers, Supreme Court justices, military officers, and most major bureaucrats. The president even has the authority to dissolve the National Council (the more powerful lower house of the Austrian parliament) more or less at will. However, as a practical matter, all the president ever does is fulfill purely ceremonial duties: much like British monarchs, holders of the office of President of Austria are bound by constitutional convention to aim at being nonpartisan custodians of political morality, to serve as symbols of national identity, and not to intervene in actual politics.