Defense service: Bundeskabinett decides on a new draft law

The Federal Cabinet has launched the law to introduce a new military service. At a meeting in the Ministry of Defense, the ministerial group approved the legal framework that introduces a military recording of young men, but initially relied on voluntariness and more attractive service, as the dpa news agency found out after the cabinet meeting.

A return to compulsory military service, as the Union politicians in particular had repeatedly demanded, was not agreed. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) formulates basic requirements for activation. If the defense policy situation or a lack of volunteers requires compulsory military service, the Bundestag must first agree. The Bundestag also decides on the law now decided in the cabinet.

The Bundeswehr needs about 80,000 additional, active soldiers. Because NATO considers a magnitude of 260,000 men and women in the standing troop to be necessary for Germany to withstand an attack, for example, Russia.

Above all, military service should create the basis for a larger reserve. It is planned to start with 15,000 new military service providers and to introduce a mandatory pattern from 2027. To recording the military, young men must provide information in a questionnaire whether they are ready and capable of military service, women can do this.

The pool to which the new military service is aimed is the age group of 18 to 25 year olds. Pistorius also pursues several approaches to make the service more attractive. Among them is also a higher soldier. For this purpose, military service providers will in future be paid as time soldiers and thus receive more than 2,000 euros net monthly.

At the beginning of the week there was still upset in the coalition because Foreign Minister Johann WadePhul (CDU) had meanwhile lodged an objection to the draft law – with a so -called ministerial reservation. After talks between the ministries, however, he withdrew it.

The Union calls for binding annual targets for the increase in the Bundeswehr with volunteers, the falling steps of which should trigger steps to compulsory. The SPD relies on voluntariness.

Pistorius expressed incomprehension on the interim appeal of WadePhul. He “had no understanding that a law was tried to stop the government from the parliament beforehand,” said the SPD politician on Deutschlandfunk.

Pistorius made it clear that he still expects changes to the law in the parliamentary procedure. The old rule applies: “No law usually leaves the Bundestag as it went.

The chairman of the Bundeswehr Association, André Wüstner, complained about the legal project before the cabinet meeting. The draft is an improvement, but given the problems with personnel recruitment “still too short,” said DPA in Berlin.

Wüstner also referred to the largely stagnating personnel development among the time and professional soldiers, the “professionals” in the military. According to the Ministry of Defense, their number was 170,800 men and women at the turn of the year, as of July 1, 171,650 soldiers. Its number should grow to around 260,000 men and women in the coming years.

Wüstner called for “limits to feasibility” – as Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) named – would now have to be overcome. He warned: “(Russia’s president) Vladimir Putin will certainly not be considerate of such sensitivities. (US President) Donald Trump, by the way, with a view to possible security guarantees in Ukraine.”

The Federal Cabinet met for the first time in more than three decades in the Ministry of Defense. The commander-in-chief of NATO troops in Europe (Sacur), US general Alexus Grynkewich, took part as a guest.