A special ceremony in Austria's parliament Friday began a year of events that will mark in turn the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, 50 years since the end of Allied occupation, and 10 years since Austria joined the European Union.

Looking back to the years of Nazi atrocities and the ruins caused by World War II, President Heinz Fischer recalled that since 1945 "democracy has triumphed over dictatorship and the (national) red-white-red flag has triumphed over the (Nazi) swastika."

Austria was absorbed into Adolf Hitler's Third Reich in 1938. After World War II, it came under Allied occupation like Germany, and was hived off again to form a new independent republic.

Austria now boasts the third highest standard of living in the European Union, which it joined in 1995 along with Finland and Sweden.

But Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel warned parliament Friday that Austria, reconstructed after two world wars, could not just be an island of prosperity.

Austrian neutrality, established after British, French, Soviet and US occupying forces withdrew in 1955, did not mean indifference, Schuessel said. Neutral status had meant Vienna was able to become a United Nations centre, and an important venue for mediation between East and West and between Arabs and Israelis.

President Fischer thanked the Austrian people for the generous aid they donated for victims of the tsunami that devastated Indian Ocean coastlines, saying "this catastrophe and the suffering it caused has transformed us all into a global family."

As many as 300 Austrian tourists are feared to have perished in the tidal wave, the worst loss of life in a disaster which the country has suffered since 155 deaths, including those of 92 Austrians, in a fire on a funicular railway in the Alps in 2000.

Celebrations here will mark the anniversaries this year of three events that shaped Austria -- 60 years of independence, the half century of its sovereignty restored after World War II and 10 years inside the European Union.

Schuessel unveiled a programme of festivities full of pomp and ceremony but said it was not a call to nostalgia, but for serious reflection about the past and future.

Austria signed a State Treaty in 1955 to ensure neutral status and restore sovereignty after 10 years of occupation.

Another 60th anniversary, that of the liberation of the Nazi death camp in Mauthausen in northern Austria on May 8, 1945 however brings to mind the country's involvement in Nazism.