Catholic Action of the archdiocese of Vienna has begun a campaign to collect signatures against the Sunday opening of shops during the European football championships in 2008 (7-29 June), which will be held in Switzerland and Austria (the cup final will be played in Vienna). The aim of the campaign is to stop the opening of shops during the four Sundays of the European Cup, and to heighten awareness of the value of Sunday as a day of rest. The forms for signing have been deposited in all parishes of the Austrian capital. The President of Catholic Action in Vienna, Christa Buzzi, has raised doubts about the wisdom of opening shops on Sundays even from a purely economic point of view: “Fans are necessarily the ideal target for shopping”, she observed, also referring to the data that emerged from the experience of the World Cup in Berlin in 2006. “The only consequence is that thousands of staff will have to serve in shops rather than spend Sunday with their own families”. According to Buzzi, this would also constitute a dangerous precedent, since the experience could herald, or hasten, the introduction of a more permissive law on the Sunday opening of shops. “Many lobbyists – she explains – are only waiting for an occasion such as this to intensify their pressure on government policy and public opinion”. She recalls the similar experience in Germany, where the World Cup was followed practically everywhere by the Sunday opening of shops. To counter this tendency, Buzzi underlined the need to promote cultural initiatives: “It would be important, for example, to grant free admission to Viennese museums” during the championships. “It would also be worth thinking of interesting options that would help to bring visitors closer to Vienna and its people outside the football stadiums. That would benefit the city more than the promotion of shopping”.
