Prellenkirchen, Lower Austria, Austria

Prellenkirchen is located near the border to the Slovak Republic, in the Römerland Carnuntum Region, comprising the villages Prellenkirchen, Schönabrunn and Deutsch-Haslau. It has 2,020 inhabitants. With its location near the iron curtain, the locality was a structural weak border municipality until 1989. Now Prellenkirchen is the centre of the upcoming twin city region Vienna-Bratislava, only 25 km away from the Slovakian capital.

The changed framework conditions constitute a challenge, but also offer new opportunities for the future development of the municipality at the rich belt of this Slovakian-Austrian conurbation. Under the consideration of maintaining and further developing identity, the careful release of building plots offered limited migration possibilities for new citizens, mostly from Slovakia.

The high degree of sensibility for their hometown, the awareness for the rural identity and the enormous presence of the many societies, often engaged in activities across the different villages, leads to a socio-cultural community, enabling village life on a high level. Migration and bilingual language skills, child care and activities for young people, a good infrastructure for leisure activities, vivid social life and numerous cultural events and customs are conscious categories for the conceptional further development of the village life, leaving their traces in everyday life.

The natural givens are carefully integrated into future changes, always considering the hometown and the region. In the scope of the development of the municipality, the responsible people also use European, national and Lower Austrian funding consequently and successfully.

Production, processing and maintenance in the agricultural sector have been constantly improved over the past years. A good example for diversification is the model business of a meat producer, who created additional income sources with holiday homes, a little shop and solar plants. Since 2007, a number of farmers have been involved in bio gas or composting plants. Excellent quality wines, which are marketed in a very stylish cellar road, are poster children for the region. The renovation of little local wine restaurants has also created new income sources. The project regarding sustainable care and hunting of small game and the marketing of game are also deemed exemplary model projects.

There are first careful approaches to tourism, marketing the municipality as a recreational area for the nearby urban areas, but with focus on soft tourism. As member of the climate coalition, Prellenkirchen uses alternative energies. The impulse for the construction of the first wind park still came from the outside. However, today the municipality actively promoted the extension and use of renewable energies. The wind information center is a lighthouse project to that end, gaining awareness among adults, children and young people across the borders.

Prellenkirchen has been successful in its endeavor to induce regional economic cycles and not only use alternative energies, but also market them in an exemplary way. The approach is sustainable and widely spread, carried by committed citizens and marked by a positive, pro-active outlook on life in a border region.

Evaluated: 2010