This paper is in two parts. The first part (1) examines the current model of the central position of Austria in Europe by means of the parameter of traffic distance and networks, the areas of origin of immigrants and the investment parameters of the Austrian capital. The second part (2) describes the factors which give added value to this small European state. 1. While the airline distance from Vienna Airport to foreign destinations confirms the model of the central position, the spread of passengers points to the asymmetry of Austria's geo-strategic position in Europe, a position which suffers particularly from the so-to-speak "black hole" of the Balkan region. The road and rail networks reflect the geo-political fate of the Austrian state: the consequences of the collapse of the Danube Monarchy, the effects of the division of Europe in the post-war period together with the truncating of traffic networks by the Iron Curtain and NATO strategies for motorway building, the purely short-term nature of the vision of Vienna as a crossroads location following the opening up of Eastern Europe - a vision to which the reunification of Germany and NATO enlargement put an end. The current traffic problems in Austria involve both increasing transit traffic and a by-passing of the country. Two trends which overlap with each other in terms of space - the East-West population migration and the West-East movement of capital - show the complicated crossroads position of this small state in the centre of Europe. The "new" migration from the states that had been part of the former Eastern Block is demonstrated by the recruitment area of the Viennese labour market which, since the early 1990s, has extended beyond Austrian borders into the Czech Republic, Southern Poland, Slovakia and Hungary. The West-East shift in capital has brought foreign investors to Austria while Austrian firms are investing in foreign countries in the East. Through the transfer of capital and establishment of firms new supranational regions are being created of varying extent and entrance gates. Two examples of these are presented: the first is the OMV petrol station network which extends in the form of a glacis to Bavaria and Northern Italy on the one hand and to the EU accession states on the other hand and, secondly, the bank network of the Bank Austria-Creditanstalt (now the Bayerische Hypovereinsbank) and the Raiffeisen-Zentralbank in East Central and Eastern Europe. 2. The particular features of Austria which give added value to this small European state include: the investment by the dominant part-time farmers of their non-agrarian income into the development of the cultural landscape, the investment of the local population in tourism on behalf of a European leisure society, the legal protection of a quarter of the national territory through the creation of national parks, country parks and culture parks, the dynamics and competitiveness of Austria's successfully restructured industry, the small and controllable nature of the territories, the regions, districts and small towns which give their inhabitants a feeling of identity and belonging, the melting-pot role of the Vienna metropolis which is again asserting itself under new conditions and, last but not least, the social peace and internal security of the small state of Austria which enjoys a high degree of these two factors that are becoming increasingly scarce resources in this 21(st) century.
