Citizenship (able to be gained after ~6 years of residency) is required for national elections.
Need to correct that the following is how this works in Iceland:
- Icelandic citizen, at least 18 years of age with legal domicile in the municipality in question
- They are either Finnish, Norwegian, Danish or Swedish citizens and fulfill later half of first requirement
- Any other citizen of another state that has had residency in Iceland for 3 years consecutively and fulfills the later half of the first requirement.
So any scandinavian, of age, who moves their domicile to Iceland can immediatly participate in the municipality votes, while others require a 3 year wait.
In Austria that's not the case. Any talks about easing up the restrictions on gaining citizenship, allowing dual citizenship or removing mandatory military service for citizens, end up smothered quickly by nationalistic and populist arguments along the lines of "foreigners should have to walk through glass to prove they're worthy for the privilege of becoming one of us".
Becoming a citizen in the UK or Belgium is a rubber stamp in comparison.
I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that it is norm for significant majority of countries in the world. Personally, I think that non-citizens should be allowed to vote on local elections (up to the city level), as they're impacted by local policies as residents, but on national level it is ok if only citizens can vote.