{"id":185357,"date":"2025-06-15T03:28:28","date_gmt":"2025-06-15T03:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/185357\/"},"modified":"2025-06-15T03:28:28","modified_gmt":"2025-06-15T03:28:28","slug":"germanys-conservatives-eye-return-to-compulsory-military-service-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/185357\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany\u2019s conservatives eye return to compulsory military service \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Falko Dro\u00dfmann, the SPD\u2019s defense policy spokesperson in parliament, argued that the current debate is \u201ccompletely missing the real problems we\u2019re facing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rather than a return to the draft, &#8220;I firmly believe that the new military service will be designed in such an attractive way that more than enough young people will choose to sign up voluntarily,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Dro\u00dfmann also warned that Germany doesn&#8217;t have the barracks, equipment or infrastructure to handle a massive influx of conscripts. \u201cTo train thousands of young people, we also need the necessary accommodations, equipment and instructors,\u201d he said. \u201cNone of that currently exists in sufficient quantity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Germany suspended compulsory military service in 2011, ending a system that had shaped both the armed forces and civilian society. Since then, troop numbers \u2014 currently at around 181,500 \u2014 have fallen well short of targets. <a href=\"https:\/\/pro.politico.eu\/news\/199466\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Military union leaders now warn<\/a> that up to 260,000 soldiers may be needed for Germany to meet its military obligations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t believe that relying on volunteers alone will be enough,\u201d said Patrick Sensburg, president of the Bundeswehr Reservist Association. \u201cWithout conscription, the Bundeswehr won\u2019t be able to recruit enough soldiers, and we also won\u2019t have a resilient civilian population.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Falko Dro\u00dfmann, the SPD\u2019s defense policy spokesperson in parliament, argued that the current debate is \u201ccompletely missing the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[7668,473,2000,299,1945,11070,1824,2597,21463],"class_list":{"0":"post-185357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-boris-pistorius","9":"tag-defense","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-friedrich-merz","13":"tag-german-politics","14":"tag-germany","15":"tag-military","16":"tag-military-recruitment"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114685260970455353","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}