Germany’s political leadership is in turmoil after a discussion on the reintroduction of compulsory military service became the latest crisis for the government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Originally, MPs from both Merz’ Conservative Democratic Union (CDU) party and his left-wing coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), had signalled they had reached an agreement yesterday.
The planned press conference, though, was cancelled at the last minute after the SPD and defence minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) reportedly pulled out of the agreement at the last minute.
Norbert Röttgen, a senior CDU MP and deputy leader of the Conservative faction in parliament, criticised Pistorius heavily.
He told German tabloid Bild: “In over 30 years in the Bundestag, I have never seen a federal minister directly undermine an important legislative process in his own area of responsibility and throw his own parliamentary group into chaos.”
He added that Pistorius had acted “destructively” and told the SPD “to get its act together”.
According to an anonymous SPD source quoted by news site Nius, the SPD’s resistance flared up at the 11th hour and was mainly instigated by Pistorius who reportedly distanced himself from the agreement in an internal SPD meeting yesterday, saying: “This was not my idea, it was a CDU idea.”
The CDU and SPD have had an ongoing dispute over the reintroduction of compulsory military service since formalising their coalition in April. While the CDU has come out in favour of a full reintroduction of compulsory military service, the left-wingers have been championing a volunteer-based system.
The German army needs an additional 80,000 active soldiers in the coming years. Currently, the it employs around 180,000 people. The number of reservists is supposed to more than triple from 60,000 to 200,000.
As the army lacks voluntary recruits, the Merz government had announced the reintroduction of the draft in some form – it had originally been abolished in 2011.
After week-long negotiations a supposed compromise was reached. It would have entailed a four-step procedure including a lottery system to determine which youngsters would be called up for military muster.
After that has fallen apart the way forward is now unclear, plunging Merz’s government into another crisis.
