I would imagine that hard-wired meters, especially located indoors would be a huge problem for non-payment disconnections.
Well, that's what (in countries more paranoid than Austria sealed) fused disconnects ahead of the meter have been invented for!
In the typical Vienna install the PoCo unscrews the main fuses (Neozed or Diazed) and puts a sticker over the base saying: "Disconnected by Wienstrom, don't remove!" If the sticker should be gone/torn/whatever in theory you'd be in trouble. In practice, no one cares...
At an older thread in this forum (the one about the hefty old wiring) you can see such stickers.
