Urgent - Vienna stops funding language courses for refugees starting in 2026
The city of Vienna announced that it will stop its support for German language courses for refugees starting in 2026, as part of austerity measures to address the large financial deficit, reigniting the dispute between the city and the Austrian Integration Fund over the responsibility for providing Deutschkurse.
The details indicate that the city has provided approximately 1,700 seats in German language courses this year, funded through Fonds Soziales Wien, continuing the same number of funded courses in 2024. Peter Hacker, a member of the Vienna City Council for Social Affairs, stated that the city will not provide any additional courses starting next year, and that all current courses will be completed only until their end, while no new courses will be offered. This decision is due to the financial pressure resulting from the budget deficit in Vienna, which imposes wide cuts in social spending.
According to the Standard newspaper, the background of the decision is related to an old dispute between the city of Vienna and the Austrian Integration Fund, which is a federal institution legally tasked with providing integration and language courses. Hacker has repeatedly criticized in recent years the lack of seats provided by the fund in the capital, arguing that the city had to compensate for the shortfall despite the federal responsibility being clear in the law. Official data indicates that the city spent around 20 million euros on language courses for refugees between 2017 and 2024, while the cost of courses in 2024 alone was about 1.9 million euros, which is the expected annual savings after the funding is stopped.
The previously benefiting groups from these courses include refugees in the Grundversorgung system, those granted asylum or subsidiary protection, in addition to asylum seekers with high chances of recognition. The city is demanding the federal fund to secure a sufficient number of courses after it received – according to Hacker's statements – an increase in funding, despite around 4000 people in Vienna receiving messages stating that they would not get a seat in any German course through the fund.
The federal fund responded to the criticisms by completely denying them, pointing out that there is not a single case of a deserving person who has not been provided with a seat in a short time. It clarified that the cases reported as not accepted relate to individuals who have exhausted their quota at a certain level due to interruption of courses, lack of commitment, or failure to attend the designated course, and that these individuals were directed to free digital courses through the fund's language portal, with the possibility of obtaining a seat again when moving to a higher language level.
The official text also shows disagreements between the parties regarding the categories eligible for language courses, as the fund clarifies that official proof must be provided when discontinuing the course due to starting work or illness, otherwise the person loses their right to repeat the course. The fund also adheres to federal law that grants the right to language courses for those granted asylum or subsidiary protection and for those arriving from Ukraine, while asylum seekers in Grundversorgung are not entitled to a seat, which the city of Vienna previously covered from its resources to expedite the integration process.
The final data indicates that the federal fund is providing 31,000 seats for language courses in Vienna this year, which is more than half of the total available seats in Austria, which amounts to 60,000 seats. The fund believes that increasing the number of seats is possible if actual demand rises, while a decrease in demand is expected in 2026. In contrast, the city of Vienna confirms that the review of taking legal action against the fund is still ongoing and that it will not continue to cover federal responsibilities that do not pertain to it.