Germany's constitution, the Basic Law, guarantees that no person can be forced into armed military service. Should the government reinstate mandatory conscription, a civilian-service alternative would have to be established for people who invoke their right to refuse military service on moral grounds as conscientious objectors.
Germany's federal government is making arrangements for this. The Family Affairs Ministry, led by Karin Prien, of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), has confirmed that in recent months it reached out to 23 large associations and organizations to ask what capacities they had to offer if civilian service were reinstated. Of those, 22 indicated a general willingness to offer opportunities for civilian service participants.
Thorsten Frei, the parliamentary group leader of the center-right bloc of the CDU and Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) in the Bundestag, told the German broadcasters RTL and ntv that it was "very clever and correct" for the Family Affairs Ministry to prepare in this way. However, Frei said, there are no new developments in the discussion surrounding the possible reinstatement of conscription.Germany looks at conscription to boost military numbersTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
