About VKÖ

Our Mission

We are committed to ensuring that essential public services remain accessible, affordable, and of high quality for everyone in Austria – today and in the future.

Public services are more than infrastructure. They form the backbone of quality of life, social justice, and social cohesion. These services are vital to daily life and for ensuring a dignified, healthy, and secure existence for all — irrespective of income or background. Key areas include energy and drinking water supply, waste and wastewater management, public transport, housing, and health and social care.

As a well-functioning public service system cannot rely on market mechanisms, our work is guided by the principles of supply security, social equity, ecological responsibility, and resilience. We advocate for a forward-looking and sustainable approach to public services that supports digital and structural transformation. To this end, we connect companies and organisations from the public services sector with partners from politics, academia, and business to develop solutions for current and future challenges.

Who We Are

The Association of Local Enterprises (Verband kommunaler Unternehmen Österreichs, VKÖ) was founded in 1992 and has since continuously evolved in response to the changing social, economic, and legal conditions affecting municipal utilities in the public service sector.

Today, the VKÖ unites around 30 municipal companies of various sizes from across Austria, along with the municipal utilities of Krakow and Merano. These companies provide essential public utility services at the regional and municipal levels for people in Austria and beyond.

We prepare relevant political and regulatory proposals for our members at the national and European levels, focusing on their impact on municipal utility companies to effectively support them in providing their services. The VKÖ offers practical formats to highlight current developments, pass on expertise, and promote dialogue between relevant stakeholders. These formats include information and networking events as well as targeted exchanges of experience. Together, we thus create sustainable framework conditions that strengthen the municipal sector and ensure socially fair and sustainable public services.

The VKÖ serves as an effective advocate for the perspectives of public services at the municipal level by leveraging a strong network of partners. The VKÖ actively contributes the perspectives of its members to the European energy policy discourse by participating in the EU DSO Entity, a coalition of European distribution system operators, and as a member of CEDEC – the European Federation of Local and Regional Energy Companies. The federation represents more than 2,000 enterprises across Europe.“

Close cooperation with the Verband kommunaler Unternehmen (VKU) and the Verband Deutscher Verkehrsunternehmen (VDV) forms another essential part of the international network. The VKÖ engages in regular exchanges with these organisations and jointly develops positions on current issues concerning public service provision.

VKÖ also has close ties to its sister association, Verband der öffentlichen Wirtschaft und Gemeinwirtschaft Österreichs (VÖWG), the Austrian Association of Public and Social Economy. Both associations are managed by the same team, collaborate closely on organisational and expert matters, and pool their expertise, networks, and structures across various fields.

The VKÖ’s leadership is grounded in practical insight gained from running local utility companies, combined with long-term continuity. KommR DI Gerhard Fida, CEO of Wiener Netze GmbH, has served as VKÖ President since 2018. Mag. Heidrun Maier-de Kruijff has been Managing Director since 2010.

Our Members

VKÖ’s members are municipal utility companies of diverse sizes and organisational structures from across Austria.

The VKÖ represents around 30 municipal utility companies from across Austria. Operating within critical infrastructure sectors at both regional and local levels, these utilities contribute significantly to Austria’s security of supply and quality of life.

Municipal utilities in Austria’s cities and towns reliably supply electricity, gas, and water, manage waste and sewage disposal, and organise local public transport, doing so sustainably and close to the communities they serve.

Municipal utility companies are key drivers of the energy transition. They play a vital role in the eco-social market economy, making them indispensable for a sustainable and generationally equitable future of Europe’s energy sector. By collaborating closely with cities and municipalities and investing directly in jobs as well as efficient infrastructure, municipal utility companies significantly contribute to regional value creation and sustainable development. Most municipal utilities adopt a multi-utility approach, enabling them to offer customers a comprehensive range of services while creating intelligent synergies and efficient solutions across the entire value chain.