JUNOS – Young liberal NEOS () is the youth wing of

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

n liberal NEOS party, and a full member of liberal youth organizations

International Federation of Liberal Youth The International Federation of Liberal Youth (IFLRY) is a Political international & liberal youth organization. It consists of a global membership of national youth organizations. These are often but not exclusively affiliated with political p ...

and

European Liberal Youth European Liberal Youth (abbreviated as LYMEC) is an international organisation of liberal youth movements – mostly the youth wings of members of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party but also individual members. LYMEC holds ...

. Founded in 1993 under the name Liberales StudentInnenforum (, or LSF) as

Liberal Forum The Liberal Forum (, LiF) was a centrist, liberal political party in Austria. The party was active from February 1993 to January 2014, when the party merged into NEOS – The New Austria. A member of the Liberal International and the Allianc ...

's youth organization, they broke with the mother party in 2009. Under the new name JuLis – Young Liberals Austria (), they competed as an independent liberal party in the

2009 European elections 9 (nine) is the natural number following and preceding . Evolution of the Hindu–Arabic digit Circa 300 BC, as part of the Brahmi numerals, various Indians wrote a digit 9 similar in shape to the modern closing question mark without the bot ...

. Ahead of the 2013 legislative election they teamed up with the new liberal NEOS party, with JuLis chairperson Nikolaus Scherak entering the Austrian parliament. In March 2014 they integrated with NEOS representing the party's youth wing.

History

Liberal Students' Forum (1993–2009)

Young Liberals (2009–2013)

At their 2009 congress, Liberal Students’ Forum disintegrated from

(LIF) and turned into an independent youth organization under the new name ''Young Liberals''. Ahead of the European elections 2009 in Austria, they, rather than LIF, received support and the required signature by Austrian MEP

Karin Resetarits Karin Kraml (née Müller; born 15 December 1961) is an Austrian journalist and politician. She was a member of the European Parliament from 2004 until 2009. At the time, her surname was Resetarits. Early and personal life Kraml was born in Vie ...

, who stated that the program of the Young Liberals was better. While this allowed the liberal youth party mostly consisting of members under 25 to compete in the elections with an independent list, it also deepened the rift with former mother party LIF and caused significant uproar in Austrian media. After having garnered 0.7% or 20.668 votes with almost no support and no classic advertisements, the Young Liberals Austria announced that they would concentrate their efforts on student politics for the time being. Due to formal reasons, the JuLis were not able to compete in the elections to the

Austrian Students' Association The Austrian Students' Union by statutory body (, ÖH) is the general students' representative body in Austria and serves as the students' government by federal law. The ÖH is a member of the European Students' Union. Membership in the ÖH is co ...

() in 2009 and were subsequently not represented in the period 2009-2011. During their III. Federal Congress in October 2010, the JuLis presented the "liberal manifesto for tertiary education" and announced their candidature for the ÖH-elections 2011. Out of several dozen contestants, the JuLis were the only ones in favour of a system of deferred tuition fees, citing the inadequate studying conditions and extremely high dropout quotes in Austria’s public universities, which have a longstanding tradition of free and unrestricted education for everyone holding the

matura or its translated terms (''mature'', ''matur'', , , , , ', ) is a Latin name for the secondary school exit exam or "maturity diploma" in various European countries, including Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech ...

. Nevertheless, the JuLis were able to secure three seats in the federal assembly of the ÖH and parts of the new program of the Austrian minister of science

Karlheinz Töchterle Karlheinz is a German given name, composed of Karl and Heinz. Notable people with that name include: * Karlheinz Böhm (1928–2014), Austrian actor * Karlheinz Brandenburg (born 1954), audio engineer * Karlheinz Deschner (1924–2014), German a ...

resembled very closely to what the JuLis had proposed several months earlier. Despite the JuLis having a “complete party manifesto”, the Austrian media used to cite them as the potential youth wing of a yet-to-be-founded new liberal party in Austria. This happened in October 2012, when the JuLis participated in the foundation of

NEOS – The New Austria NEOS – The New Austria and Liberal Forum () is a liberal political party in Austria. It was founded as NEOS – The New Austria in 2012. In 2014, NEOS merged with Liberal Forum and adopted its current name. Since 2018, Beate Meinl-Reisinge ...

as youth partners and Nikolaus Scherak was elected into the board of NEOS.

JUNOS (since 2013)

National board

The current national board was elected at the XXVI. Federal Congress, which took place in November 2022 in Vienna: *

Sophie Wotschke Sophie Wotschke (born 24 July 1998) is an Austrian politician of NEOS (Austria), NEOS. She was elected member of the National Council (Austria), National Council in the 2024 Austrian legislative election, 2024 legislative election, and has serve ...

(President) * Naemi Häfeli (Vice-President, Organizational Development) * Fabienne Lackner (Vice-President, Press Affairs) * Julian Fritsch (Secretary General) * Alina Steiner (Member of Board, Social-Media & Campaigns) * Jakob Dirnböck (Member of Board, Programmatic Training) * Julius Lajtha (International Officer) * Manuel Grubmüller (President JUNOS Students) * Frederik Witjes (President JUNOS Pupils)

Political values

The JuLis see themselves as the only supporters of

liberalism Liberalism is a Political philosophy, political and moral philosophy based on the Individual rights, rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law. ...

amongst Austria’s youth parties. According to their manifesto, their core values are

freedom Freedom is the power or right to speak, act, and change as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving oneself one's own laws". In one definition, something is "free" i ...

and responsibility, unity and diversity,

rationality Rationality is the quality of being guided by or based on reason. In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do, or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an ab ...

and

progress Progress is movement towards a perceived refined, improved, or otherwise desired state. It is central to the philosophy of progressivism, which interprets progress as the set of advancements in technology, science, and social organization effic ...

, open-mindedness and tolerance,

solidarity Solidarity or solidarism is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. True solidarity means moving beyond individual identities and single issue politics ...

and a federal Europe.

Structure

Since their foundation in 2009, the Young Liberals Austria are organised in federal groups that correspond to the nine federal states of Austria. As of January 2012, the JuLis have active groups in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

Lower Austria Lower Austria ( , , abbreviated LA or NÖ) is one of the nine states of Austria, located in the northeastern corner of the country. Major cities are Amstetten, Lower Austria, Amstetten, Krems an der Donau, Wiener Neustadt and Sankt Pölten, which ...

Upper Austria Upper Austria ( ; ; ) is one of the nine States of Austria, states of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as the other Austrian states of Lower Austria, Styria, and Salzburg (state), Salzbur ...

Salzburg Salzburg is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020 its population was 156,852. The city lies on the Salzach, Salzach River, near the border with Germany and at the foot of the Austrian Alps, Alps moun ...

Tyrol Tyrol ( ; historically the Tyrole; ; ) is a historical region in the Alps of Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary, f ...

Vorarlberg Vorarlberg ( ; ; , , or ) is the westernmost States of Austria, state () of Austria. It has the second-smallest geographical area after Vienna and, although it also has the second-smallest population, it is the state with the second-highest popu ...

Styria Styria ( ; ; ; ) is an Austrian Federal states of Austria, state in the southeast of the country. With an area of approximately , Styria is Austria's second largest state, after Lower Austria. It is bordered to the south by Slovenia, and cloc ...

and

Carinthia Carinthia ( ; ; ) is the southernmost and least densely populated States of Austria, Austrian state, in the Eastern Alps, and is noted for its mountains and lakes. The Lake Wolayer is a mountain lake on the Carinthian side of the Carnic Main ...

, covering all states except for

Burgenland Burgenland (; ; ; Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian: ''Burgnland''; Slovene language, Slovene: ''Gradiščanska''; ) is the easternmost and least populous Bundesland (Austria), state of Austria. It consists of two statutory city (Austria), statut ...

.Young Liberals Austria: About us
/ref>

External links

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:JUNOS - Young liberal NEOS Organizations established in 1993 Youth wings of political parties in Austria Political parties established in 2009 NEOS (Austria) 1993 establishments in Austria 2009 establishments in Austria