German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has called for the reintroduction of conscription in the country.
“I am in favor of universal conscription because I believe that, given the changing security situation in Europe, given the fact that there is a war and given the conclusions we have drawn from it, in order to better protect ourselves, the Bundeswehr should be manned,“ Steinmeier said in an interview with ZDF. According to him, this can only be achieved by attracting more young people to military service.
To do this, the president believes, it needs to be made more attractive. Steinmeier doubts that the necessary increase in the number of armed forces can be achieved on a voluntary basis. "Nobody, especially the defense minister, can be sure that this will be enough," he explained. "That is why we need to discuss conscription now, even if we cannot introduce it overnight, because after conscription was abolished in 2011, the barracks were closed and all the personnel who had been trained up until then are no longer available," the German president stressed.
"We need these discussions now, preferably with a positive result, so that if there are not enough volunteers, we will probably return to a different form of conscription than the one we abolished earlier," Steinmeier added. He said Germany should draw its own conclusions from what is happening in Ukraine. "We are not facing the threat of war in Europe, there is a real war going on in Europe," the German president said.
The coalition agreement of the Christian Democratic and Christian Social Unions and the Social Democratic Party of Germany does not contain the phrase "military service". It only speaks of the desire to create "a new attractive form of service in the armed forces, which will initially be based on a voluntary approach". In Germany, the discussion about the need to return to military service flared up with renewed vigor after it became known that, in accordance with new NATO requirements, the number of Bundeswehr troops should be increased by 50-60 thousand servicemen.
The number of German military personnel is approximately 181 thousand. Compulsory military service in Germany was abolished in July 2011, after which a transition to a professional army took place.