Poland plans to impose military training on all men

BerlinPolish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced on Friday that his government plans to introduce “military training for all Polish adult men” with the aim of making them well prepared in case of war. “We are preparing large-scale military training for all adult men in Poland. Women too, but war is still largely the domain of men…” Tusk said in a speech to the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish parliament, in which he spoke about Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, transatlantic relations and the current situation in the country. The unexpected turn of the US president.

Tusk believes that Poland needs an army of around 500,000 soldiers, including reservists, compared to the 290,000 it has at present. He compared these figures with the approximately 800,000 Ukrainian soldiers and the 1.3 million active Russian soldiers.

The Polish prime minister has set himself the goal of finalising the plan to reintroduce military training for all adult men “by the end of the year” to ensure that Poland has “a well-trained reserve force ready for possible threats”. “If Ukraine loses the war, or if it accepts the terms of peace, armistice or capitulation in such a way that it weakens its sovereignty and makes it easier for Putin to control Ukraine, then, without a doubt, and we will all agree on this, Poland will find itself in a complicated geopolitical situation.”

However, Tusk later clarified in statements to Polish media that he was not announcing the reintroduction of military service, which became non-mandatory in 2008, Polish news channel TVP World reports. The Polish prime minister also explained that while the details of the plan are not finalised, there are several models that Poland could follow. He gave as an example “the Swiss model”, where training “is not compulsory, but there are incentives that make men opt for annual training”, he added.

Poland, which shares a 529-kilometre border with Ukraine, will spend 4.7% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defence this year, the highest in NATO. In 2024 it already spent 4.1% of its GDP on defence. "It is a race for security, not a race towards war," said Tusk, who also announced that he has asked the Ministry of Defence to have Poland withdraw from the Ottawa Convention and the Dublin Convention on the ban on anti-personnel mines and cluster bombs, respectively.

And what about the rest of Europe?

Poland is not the only EU country considering offering military training to all men. Following the elections on February 23rdGermany has reopened the debate on whether or not to revive conscription amid concerns about the war in Ukraine and a shortage of personnel in the German army.

"The suspension of conscription no longer fits the current threat situation," said Florian Hahn, defence spokesman for the CDU-CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament. "The first conscripts will have to pass through the gates of the barracks in 2025. We cannot stand by as the world around us becomes increasingly insecure," the conservative Bavarian politician warned in statements to the German newspaper Image. In Germany, conscription was abolished in 2011.

58% of Germans are in favour of making military service compulsory again, while 34% are against it, according to a recent YouGov poll. However, support for reintroducing military service increases with age in Germany, as it would no longer directly affect older people. Among young people aged 18 to 29, only one in three is in favour of conscription, while 61% are against it, according to the same poll.