Can military service be returned to Spain?
Countries close to Russia are recovering it or have never abolished it, but the Spanish government rules it out.
Madrid"As long as military service doesn't return..." resigns a woman reading a newspaper in a café. European rearmament is now dominating political debate, and security is the main concern of governments. "It's not that this is the current debate. It's the most important debate of the generations alive today," commented a senior Spanish diplomat at a recent meeting, where the question of whether compulsory military service could return to Spain also arose. This issue is not on the table in most southern European countries, but the situation is very different in the Nordic, Baltic, and Eastern European states, which for geographical and historical reasons feel closer to the threat posed by the expansionism of Vladimir Putin's regime. Without going any further, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced last week that his government is planning "large-scale" military training for "all adult males" in the country. "Even if they don't join the army, they will be full-fledged soldiers in the event of a conflict," said the leader in a speech to the Polish Parliament.
In an interview on Catalunya Ràdio on Thursday, former senior European diplomat Josep Borrell asserted that "it is not a priority" for Spain because current wars "do not require so many infantry." "It is not a problem of the number of soldiers in a trench," he noted. The need for large armies is linked to the need to guarantee territorial coverage against a potential threat, he explained, citing the example of countries bordering Russia. In fact, despite the trend in the 1990s and early 2000s among European states to end military service—as did Belgium, the Netherlands, and, among others, Spain—some have never abolished it, such as Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, and Lithuania. Outside the EU, the cases of Norway and Switzerland, which also do not have NATO's military umbrella, are also notable.
In Spain, the consensus established since José María Aznar abolished military service is that professional armed forces are more useful. This is even more so, according to the Unified Association of Military Personnel (AUME), considering that new "weapons systems require specificity." In this regard, some European countries that maintain compulsory military service no longer offer long training periods like the ones they used to (two years), but rather half a year for basic instruction, with the possibility of specializing and undergoing periodic paid training. "In Denmark, there are many volunteers because the conditions for the reserves are good: well-paid, they allow you to develop specialties and work for the armed forces," notes Félix Arteaga, principal researcher at the Elcano Royal Institute.
This expert believes that Spain does not need to resort to compulsory military service and that current needs can be met through recruitment and reservists. However, the Spanish government wants to expand the armed forces' personnel—in recent years it has been reduced from 130,000 troops in 2010 to 116,000—and Arteaga maintains that conditions should be improved to make it more attractive. This Tuesday, the Council of Ministers approved a royal decree establishing the staffing levels for general officers, commissioned officers, and non-commissioned officers for the 2025-2029 period, with an estimated increase of 7,500 members. Sources from the Ministry of Defense report that the annual calls for applications—there are two—usually have an average of four applicants per position, so there is no problem with demand despite the low salaries. On the contrary, more and more women, and those with better training, are applying.
The Culture of Defense
The Spanish army is also expanding its units related to technological innovation, an area that Pedro Sánchez emphasized this week when he argued that increased military spending in the State should be more closely linked to industry and technological capabilities and not so much to the traditional concept of tanks and soldiers. The Spanish president, in line with the European Commission, has been talking for days about a "360-degree vision" in terms of security, linking it to climate emergencies and cybersecurity. In this area, the military and civilian spheres intersect—there are technologies that can have dual uses—and, in some ways, make citizens feel more involved in defense. "There are many ways to defend, and it will surely be necessary for everyone to do something," Borrell said in the interview on Catalunya Ràdio. AUME members agree that in Spain there has never been a culture like the Nordic one, "more of a collective" when it comes to the country's security.
In this regard, the European Commission commissioned a report from former Finnish President Sauli Niinistö on how to "change the civilian and military mentality of Europeans," reports Gerard FagedaThis plan, presented last fall by the president of the EU executive, Ursula von der Leyen, advocates "raising awareness" and "empowering" EU citizens so they are capable of "taking on greater responsibility," even in "the worst possible scenarios," such as Russian aggression, among others.
