Austrian minister of defence Gerald Klug presented a wide-ranging restructuring package for the Austrian Federal Army (Bundesheer) on 3 October to enable the service to cope with more spending cuts.

With defence spending set to drop by a further EUR80 million (USD101 million) in 2015, threatening the Bundesheer's ability to carry out its core functions, cuts of up to EUR200 million a year will be required to restructure the force and provide some financial room to carry out key tasks, said Klug.

Presenting the 'Structural package 2018', Klug explained that "it is and will be necessary and unavoidable, to give the Bundesheer a structure that takes into account the budgetary framework-conditions available. While in the same time the army has to remain capable to fulfil certain probable combat tasks".

Austrian defence spending for 2015 is now expected to be EUR1.75 billion - at 0.55% of GDP the lowest in Europe - with personnel costs accounting for about 65% of the budget. To restrain personnel costs by 2018 1,400 positions (5.9% of Austria's total of 23,990) will be gradually cut via retirements and a recruitment freeze.

Over the next two years 13 Austrian military barracks and schools will be closed as part of efforts to save EUR80 million.

Additionally, the General Staff will retain only a core of heavy systems in order to retain institutional knowledge should the security situation in Europe drastically change. As such,a large number of the Bundesheer's equipment inventory will be retired, and sold, including: 106 M109A5 artillery-pieces (out of 136), 25 Leopard 2 main battle tanks (out of 59, leaving just one tank battalion remaining), 23 armoured recovery/engineering vehicles (out of 48), 285 Bill anti-tank guided weapons (out of 350) and 424 mortars (out of 606).

The 'structural package', however, not only includes cuts and closures. Klug explicitly underlined that much needed updates to Austria's nine Sikorsky S-70A42 Black Hawk helicopters, the long-overdue replacements of the obsolete OH-58B Kiowa and Alouette III helicopters and 44-year old Saab-105OE jet-trainers, will require additional funding from 2016. "These programmes cannot be borne by the running budgets. Without extra funds these essential assets for disaster-relief and air-surveillance will be gone by 2020 at the latest," he stated.

Despite Austria's neutral position and historical lack of emphasis on defence spending, the plans have drawn strong criticism. Mario Kunasek, security speaker for Austria's largest opposition party, the Freedom Party of Austria, said the plans were "the death-blow to our military", adding that they were in violation of Austria's constitution.

Austrian federal president Heinz Fischer also expressed concern about the cuts, saying he "expects the government to take decisions to fulfil constitutional obligations and to secure necessary and better funding in the future".