Austrian State Treaty

The Austrian State Treaty (German:  Österreichischer Staatsvertrag ) or Austrian Independence Treaty re-established Austria as a sovereign state. It was signed on 15 May 1955 in Vienna, at the Schloss Belvedere among the Allied occupying powers (France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union) and the Austrian government. It officially came into force on 27 July 1955.

Its full title is "Treaty for the re-establishment of an independent and democratic Austria, signed in Vienna on the 15 May 1955" (German: Staatsvertrag betreffend die Wiederherstellung eines unabhängigen und demokratischen Österreich, unterzeichnet in Wien am 15. Mai).

The treaty re-established a free, sovereign and democratic Austria. The basis for the treaty was the Moscow Declaration of October 30, 1943.

First attempts to negotiate a treaty were made by the first post-war government. However, they failed because the Allies wanted to see a peace treaty with Germany first. A treaty became less likely with the development of the Cold War. However, Austria successfully held its part of Carinthia against the demands of a resurgent Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, even though the issue of potential reunification with South Tyrol, annexed by Italy from Austria-Hungary in 1919, was not addressed. The climate for negotiations improved with Joseph Stalin's death in 1953, and negotiations with the Soviet foreign minister, Molotov, secured the breakthrough in February 1955.

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