Burgenland could well be taken as a sign of the Soviet Union towards opening the borders to the Western countries, starting in the late 1970s. Despite Burgenland (especially the area around Neusiedler See) always producing excellent wine, some vintners in Burgenland added illegal substances to their wine in the mid-1980s. When this was revealed, Austria's wine exports dwindled dramatically. After recovering from the scandal, vintners in Austria, not only in Burgenland, started focusing on quality and mostly stopped producing poor quality wine. On 27 July 1989, the Foreign ministers of Austria and Hungary, Alois Mock and Gyula Horn, cut the Iron
Vorarlberg the Swiss French in the 19th century by invitation during the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. There has been a sizable minority of Turkish descent since the 1960s. 78% of the population are Roman Catholic, which puts Vorarlberg in line with the national Austrian average of 73.6%. The second-largest denomination, with a share of 8.4%, is Islam, mostly Turks. 7,817 (or 2.2%) of Vorarlberg's inhabitants are Protestants. For several years, the Vorarlberg economy has been performing well above the Austrian average. While the overall Austrian GDP in 2004 rose by 2.0% in real terms, Vorarlberg recorded an increase of 2.9%.