defense
Esken rejects Pistorius’ proposal for compulsory military service
SPD leader Saskia Esken speaks out against the return to compulsory military service. photo
© Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa
The Bundeswehr is suffering from a shortage of personnel. Can the reintroduction of compulsory service help? Defense Minister Pistorius can imagine that.
SPD leader Saskia Esken has thoughts from the Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) rejected a return to compulsory military service. “I don’t think much of reintroducing a duty, an obligation for adults, fundamentally out of my view of humanity,” said Esken in an interview with the German Press Agency. “I believe that the Bundeswehr is now well positioned as a professional army and needs to be further developed.”
Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said in an interview with “Welt am Sonntag” that, given the shortage of personnel in the Bundeswehr, he was examining models of compulsory military service and was taking the Swedish model of conscription into account. “All young women and men are mustered there, and only a selected number of them end up doing basic military service. Whether something like that would also be conceivable for us is part of these considerations,” said Pistorius. He is checking all options. “But every model, no matter which one, also needs political majorities.”
Esken: No training units available
The traffic light coalition partner FDP has already rejected the considerations. Now the SPD minister is also facing rejection within his own party. “I believe that the suspension and de facto abolition of compulsory military service had good reasons,” said party leader Esken to the dpa. The Bundeswehr has now developed to such an extent that it would not be able to implement compulsory military service on an ad hoc basis. “Because the training units that are necessary for this no longer exist.”
Esken emphasized that the lack of justice in military service was one reason for the abolition of compulsory military service in Germany. And that couldn’t be produced with the Swedish model either. What this means is that recently only part of a year in the Bundeswehr was called up for service.
Scholz has rejected the conscription debate
Compulsory military service was suspended in Germany in 2011 after 55 years. Shortly after taking office, Pistorius described this as a mistake, but one that could not be corrected in the blink of an eye. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) rejected a debate about a return to compulsory military service in February. “The Bundeswehr has been converted into a professional army. Therefore, returning to compulsory military service makes no sense,” he told the “Bild” newspaper at the time. On the other hand, the Commissioner for the Armed Forces, Eva Högl (SPD), like Pistorius, expressed sympathy for the Swedish model.
Sweden suspended compulsory military service in 2010, shortly before Germany. Against the background of a deteriorating security situation, the country returned to compulsory service in 2018, and muster work began in the summer of 2017. “We had difficulties manning the combat units on a voluntary basis,” said the then Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist.