Germany’s Bundestag parliament began its first reading of the contentious bill seeking to reintroduce some form of military service, on a purely voluntary basis at first but with contested plans to add some kind of mandatory component in future if necessary.
The legislation to modernize the military is supposed to come into force in 2026, but time is already running short, and frictions on the policy plans spilled out into the public earlier in the week.
Politicians from both ruling parties, the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, tried to indicate flexibility and willingness for compromise after the communications blunders of the previous 48 hours.
Meanwhile, some Greenpeace members and others from the conscientious objector group, the German Peace Society, stood outside the parliament with banners decrying the plans.
Pistorius: Anything less than passionate debate would be disappointing
Social Democrat Defense Minister opened the parliamentary debate by praising parliament, saying he was “proud and grateful that we in this house have found democratic paths to considerably and rapidly improve the defensive capabilities of our country” in recent years in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Today we are taking the next logical step together: the step to expand our combat forces,” Pistorius said.
He said the coalition government had agreed “to first try to do this using the voluntary route.”
This follows the confusion on Tuesday as coalition circles leaked news of a breakthrough on a means of mandatory recruitment via lottery if necessary, only to then abruptly cancel a press conference that was supposed to brief defense reporters on the plan that evening.
Pistorius also made oblique mention of this, but more by seeking to stress that any decision on obligatory recruitment was not part of the current bill and was a matter for a future debate.
“What’s also clear is that if voluntary recruitment does not suffice, there will be no alternative besides some form of obligatory recruitement,” Pistorius said. “But even then, that would clearly only take place under the authority of a Bundestag resolution, and using methods that are yet to be decided.”
The defense minister tried to argue that the friction of recent days should come as no surprise, even as a reassurance, not least given Germany’s difficult 20th century military history.
“Anything less than a passionate, open and also heated debate on a question like this would have been a disappointment to me, be it in parliament, in classrooms, or in society in general,” Pistorius said. “This issue deserves an open and honest debate because it affects the lives of many people.”
CDU politicians stick by lot-drawing proposal, but signal flexibility
Politicains from said they stood by their lottery-based “Plan B” for the case that voluntary recruitment falls short of targets or needs.
This idea was hammered out in talks with SPD negotiators Siemtje Möller and Norbert Röttgen but did not meet approval from Pistorius or SPD parliamentarians and so was shelved again. According to German media reports, the issue became the source of considerable tension between Möller, Röttgen and Pistorius.
CDU defense policy expert Thomas Erndl described the lottery proposal as a fair idea.
“Anyone with better suggestions can gladly put them on the table,” Erndl said, but argued it was irresponsible not to consider what would happen if too few young men signed up.
“We have a damn duty to think about a Plan B as well,” he said.
Aiming to double the Bundeswehr’s ranks, with few clear ideas on how
The stated long-term aim is to more than double the number of active German servicemen and women to 460,000 by 2035; comprised of roughly 260,000 permanent soldiers and around 200,000 reservists.
Currently, the Bundeswehr has around 182,000 servicemen and women and has been struggling to recruit more.
Neither the draft law as it stands nor the lottery proposal is very clear on the contentious question of mandatory recruitment.
The draft law mentions the likelihood for the need of “comprehensive mustering” as of 2027, but doesn’t say how it plans to achieve this, and avoids clarifying whether it means mustering in the sense of compulsory conscription, or simply an obligation for young men to muster for inspection and consideration.
The lottery proposal, meanwhile, was said to involve drawing lots to make up any shortfall, but then to try to encourage those whose lot was drawn to volunteer, rather than obliging them to act. Again, it didn’t explain how it planned to achieve this, though Tuesday’s canceled presentation might conceivably have shed more light.
What does the current proposal entail, and what is currently in German law?
As of 2026, the bill foresees sending a questionnaire to all men aged 18 asking about their availability and interest in military service; responding will be mandatory.
Young women will also be sent the questionnaire, but will have no obligation to respond.
The government hopes that enough men will signal a desire to join voluntarily, at least in the short term.
Germany had conscription to a form of mandatory national service, but not necessarily in the military, for men leaving school until as recently as 2011.
The legal right to oblige young men to serve for a period is enshrined in the constitution, and was only suspended by a simple majority vote in parliament when the system was scrapped. Another simple majority vote would suffice in theory to reactivate the provision as it is.
But adding women to the provision, or altering its content, would require a two-thirds majority in the lower and upper houses of parliament instead. The coalition government by itself is nowhere near commanding these majorities, even if it could reach internal agreement on the issue.
Edited by: Roshni Majumdar
The post German parliament opens debate on military service bill appeared first on Deutsche Welle.
