Berlin quarrels with whom to go to the army. Increasing the number of Bundeswehr through “Lottery”, rejected by the Minister of Defense

The German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, replied on Wednesday to his criticisms from his own coalition government, in the context in which the army recruitment threatens to shadow Berlin's efforts to strengthen his military discouragement capacity, writes France Presse.

The reintroduction of the military service is the key project of Berlin in the face of the increased threat.

Conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz, invoking the threat of a hostile Russia, entrusted to Pistorius, a member of the Social-Democratic Party (SPD), the center-left, the task of stimulating the recruitment to build “the most powerful conventional army in Europe”.

But the question about how this objective can be reached has led to angry accusations, Pistorius preferring a volunteer approach to military service, while CDU/CSU conservatives, support the possibility of using a “lottery” (drawing lots) for recruitment if necessary.

The coalition government had planned a first reading of a compromise draft this week, but the disagreement on details aroused a dispute on Tuesday.

Pistorius told reporters on Wednesday that the option of a draw to restore the ranks of the German army (Bundeswehr) is a “lazy compromise” and that, in practice, it would consume too much time.

Pistorius also qualified as “rotten” this compromise on the military service, the social-democratic minister stating that the dispute caused by his refusal to validate the agreement between social-democratic and conservative deputies “is less dramatic than is said”.

Pistorius maintained the objective regarding the entry into force on January 1 of a law on the military service and which would help increase the number of soldiers in Bundeswehr from 182,000 to at least 260,000.

Critics right from the government coalition

Some parliamentarians in the CDU/CSU center party of Merz have reacted angrily to Pistorius's position.

“In 30 years of activity in the Parliament, I have never seen a minister torped an important bill and to throw their own parliamentarians in such chaos,” said Norbert Roettgen, an important MP, for Sweddeutsche Zeitung.

NATO objectives require Germany to increase its total military number of 460,000 soldiers, of which 260,000 active soldiers and 200,000 reservists.

But the Bundeswehr is currently far from these figures, having, in addition to the 182,000 active soldiers, only 49,000 reservists.

Pistorius hopes to avoid the need to recruit by attracting a higher number of volunteers with better salaries and benefits such as free driving permits and technical training opportunities.

Contra as well as the downs of drones

The recruitment dispute is not the only point of tension between the Conservatives in CDU/CSU and their smaller partners in the coalition, social-democrats.

Pistorius also took the CSU leader Markus Soeder, who asked for an aggressive reaction to the drones that are believed to be Russian and who have been observed above the various sensitive locations in Germany.

After a series of mysterious drones closed the Munich airport this month, Soeder, who is also the prime minister of Land Bavaria, has supported a reaction policy to “to break them, rather than waiting.”

Pistorius rejected such statements, cataloging them as “a rhetoric”, in an interview with the Pioneer site.

“Such statements could work at noon in Dodge City (the city of gunmen, no), but not in international politics, where we must prevent wars and avoid conflict escalation,” said the German Minister of Defense.