Federal Ministry of the Interior

In Austria, the Ministry of the Interior (, colloquially Innenministerium, abbreviated: BMI) is a federal government agency serving as the interior ministry of the Austrian government. It is chiefly responsible for the public security, but also deals with matters relating to citizenship, elections, referendums, plebiscites and the alternative civilian service. The Ministry of the Interior is considered one of the most important ministries in Austria It operates and oversees the vast majority of the country's law enforcement agencies, including the Federal Police, the Criminal Police Office (BKA), the Directorate State Protection and Intelligence Service (DSN), the Bureau for Anticorruption (BAK), the Cobra Mission Command (EKO Cobra), the Aerial Police Force, and the Special Observatory Unit (SEO). The Directorate General for the Public Security, which is primarily made up of career law enforcement officers, serves as the professional governing body of all these agencies, except for the BAK. Federal law enforcement agencies outside of the ministry's control include the Military Police, the Fiscal Police, and the Judiciary Guard. The Palais Modena is the ministry's central headquarters, it is situated in the centre of Austria's capital Vienna. History The Ministry was originally created as "Imperial and Royal Ministry of the Interior", serving as the empire-wide interior ministry for Austria-Hungary. It was succeeded by the "state office of the Interior" (Staatsamt des Innern) of the First Republic in 1918, and later renamed into "Federal Ministry of the Interior". After the dissolution of Nazi Germany in 1945 the Ministry was reestablished into its current form.