"A scheme agreed by the governing parties over the summer under a plan laid out by the popular defence minister, Boris Pistorius of the Social Democrats (SPD), would have relied on voluntary recruitment to draw tens of thousands of young men to military service. But doubts among chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservative CDU/CSU bloc that that plan would be sufficient to top up troop levels led to insistent calls for a compulsory mechanism a form of conscription to kick in automatically if necessary."
"The dispute came to a head this week after Pistorius vetoed a compromise under which a contingent of young men selected by a lottery could have been pressed into mandatory Bundeswehr service if the volunteer programme failed to produce enough recruits. A news conference to announce the outlines of the new conscription lite draft bill, which was to have been introduced to the Bundestag lower house of parliament this week, was hastily cancelled late on Tuesday."
Germany's governing coalition is divided over how to fill severe military manpower shortfalls while meeting NATO commitments and deterring Russia. Defence minister Boris Pistorius proposed a volunteer recruitment plan to attract tens of thousands of young men. Chancellor Friedrich Merz's CDU/CSU bloc doubted voluntary measures and pushed for an automatic conscription trigger if volunteer numbers fall short. Merz said he preferred voluntary measures but remained sceptical and pledged to build Europe's strongest conventional army. Pistorius vetoed a compromise lottery-based backup conscription, prompting cancellation of a planned parliamentary bill announcement and mutual blame between parties.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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