Lars Klingbeil: “Will not return to the old conscription”

Vice -Chancellor Lars Klingbeil excludes a return to compulsory military service in Germany, but wants to create the prerequisites for mandatory collecting. The coalition agreement is based on voluntariness, “but we have to create the prerequisites for the fact that mandatory could also be confiscated,” said Klingbeil of the new Berlin editorial company. “But there will be no return to the old conscription, in which all young men of a year are collected,” said the SPD boss.

The compulsory military service was suspended in Germany in 2011. However, soldiers are missing. The NATO defense ministers have agreed what every member country will have to contribute so that the alliance can be sufficiently defensive and can deter a potential upgraded attacker such as Russia. Germany therefore needs 50,000 to 60,000 active soldiers, Federal Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) said.

The black and red coalition agreement says: “We create a new attractive military service that is initially based on voluntariness.” Pistorius had recently made it clear that the agreed voluntariness only applies if the need for soldiers can be covered in this way. Union faction leader Jens Spahn advocates creating the prerequisites for a possible compulsory service in the Bundeswehr as a precaution.

The NATO summit in the Hague is planned in the middle of next week. Under the pressure of US President Donald Trump, the summit will be agreed to invest at least one amount of 3.5 percent of national gross domestic product in defense in the future.

Klingbeil considers a fixation to the numbers alone. Counting percentages is unproductive. “We must not fix ourselves alone, but have to clarify what NATO and the Bundeswehr need so that we will continue to live in the future,” said Klingbeil.