2024-03-22 06:06:13
Western countries are trying to convince military personnel to stay in the army amid problems with the outflow of active personnel.
As Day.Az reports with reference to TASS, this is reported by the European version of the Politico newspaper.
According to her information, EU countries began to experience problems not so much with the recruitment of recruits, but with the outflow of active military personnel. As the publication notes, Western countries relying on a professional army are finding it difficult to make the armed forces attractive in conditions of low unemployment, fierce competition from the private sector and widespread remote work. Thus, according to the newspaper, in France, military personnel remain in the army on average a year less than before, and in Great Britain the annual shortage of army personnel is 1,100 people, which is equivalent to two infantry battalions.
In this regard, EU defense departments have stepped up efforts to retain military personnel. Thus, French Minister of the Armed Forces Sebastien Lecornu has already presented a plan to maintain the size of the French armed forces. According to him, the issue of retaining military personnel in the army is currently being discussed at meetings of NATO countries, along with the topic of providing the armed forces with the necessary weapons. “Such discussions are now taking place in the capitals of all democratic countries where there are professional armies without compulsory military service,” Lecornu added, noting that the problem exists, in particular, in the United States and Great Britain.
On March 13, Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen announced that the government was planning a large-scale restructuring of the conscription system. One of the innovations is that women and men will be drafted on completely equal terms. In February, Latvian Foreign Minister Krisjanis Karins told the British television channel Sky News that NATO countries that do not currently conscript citizens into their armed forces should follow the example of Latvia, which has returned to the practice of compulsory military service.