Returning mandatory military service to Serbia, without reason and clear price

Thirteen years after he spent in a professional army and made mandatory military service ad acta, an initiative was launched in Serbia to restore him.

The initiative is launched by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Serbia, and the proposal has been handed over to Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vucic, on 4 January.

In its explanation, the Serbian Army said the proposal comes “following a detailed review of the overall security situation and contemporary challenges facing Serbia as a military country neutral”.

Details of these challenges have not been specified.

Also, it became known that the proposal comes in order to restore the Serbian Armed Forces' defence capabilities through renovation and improved filling and training of active and reserve forces”.

A day later, Serbia's Defence Minister Milos Vuchevic explained in a TV Pink statement that the return of mandatory military service “is not called for any conflict or preparation for wars, but for the protection of state”.

For the Military Union of Serbia, this is a “political movement”, for which there is no valid explanation, because the opinion has not been answered on the key question: how and where mandatory military service will be implemented.

“They said it should be up to four months, but we don't know whether these people will serve in army units or go to training centres, as it is now with young people and young people serving voluntarily”, Free Europe (REL) tells Radio. Novica Antic, chairman of Serbia's Military Union.

The question is how much it would cost the citizens of Serbia mandatory military service and whether it has enough capacity.

Military outreach, a Permanent Problem

Novica Antic shows there is a problem with meeting units in the army. According to him, estimates are that the army lacks 10,000 recruits a year.

We've constantly stressed this, primarily because of the poor material and social state of workers, incomes and poor working conditions, and the fact that this problem exists”, says Antic.

However, he does not see the solution in restoring compulsory military service.

If the military's position improved, recruiting would become more popular so that our units would be completed, in that case we would not need to restore military service in this way”, says Antiq.

He stresses that it is strange that the initiative comes at a time when the government is on a technical mandate and parliament has been disbanded, and that prior to the introduction of mandatory military service a set of laws would have to be amended.

“I think it's just a matter of politics and gathering free political points, or maybe even turning attention away from some important topic that is burdening our country at the moment, Antiq points out.

There is no official record of how many active soldiers Serbia's Army has.

According to unofficial estimates, this number ranges from 22 to 25 thousand.

What do citizens say?

Djordje Zlatkovic, medical student in Kragujevc, tells Radio Free Europe that it opposes imposing mandatory military service.

“Who wants to go voluntarily, let go”, says Zlatko. However, he believes that establishing the obligation to serve in the military will not happen.

I think this is simply turning public attention away from the most important topics”, says Zlatko.

Against this idea is his fellow citizen, student at the Faculty of Economics in Kragujevc, Stefan Arkallic.

I'm shocked because I think it's completely unnecessary right now. Why are the tools being invested in the military, not in education, school, health?”, says Arkliq for Radio Free Europe.

Zvonko Crnic, 21, who is employed, also does not believe mandatory military service will be introduced.

“I don't think it's even profitable, because we can see that barracks in Serbia are in very bad shape and soldiers' wages are desperate, so the military is not attractive to young people today”, he says.

This is not the first time government in Serbia raises the issue of restoring mandatory military service. Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuciq, has spoken on the issue in 2022 and earlier in 2018.

The Serbian presidency did not answer the REL question if President Aleksandar Vuciq approves the General Staff initiative.

If he approved it, the decision would have to be confirmed by MPs in Parliament, as was the case when mandatory military service was removed.

How much would it cost?

In Serbia mandatory military service was removed on January 1st, 2011, and only those who want to go into the military ever since go.

It is not known at the moment how much his return would be known.

Serbia's Defence Ministry did not answer that question posed by the REL and whether this cost was envisioned in the budget for 2024.

In previous years, representatives of the Serbian government came up with different cost estimates if mandatory military service were to be restored.

In 2018, Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuciq, came up with an assessment that restoring mandatory military service would cost between 90m and 130m euros a year, depending on whether training will last three or six months.

This figure represents a tenth of the total budget value for the Serbian Ministry of Defence and Army for 2024, amounting to 1.3 billion euros.

According to reviews by the Defence Ministry in 2016, which were presented to Parliament by then Defence Minister Zoran Djordjevic, the return of mandatory military service would cost about 600m euros, which would represent 40 percent of the planned overall defence budget for 2024.

Few countries in Europe have mandatory military service

If the current Serbian government decides to return military service to the regular framework, Serbia will be among the few countries in Europe, such as Sweden, Lithuania or Georgia, which lifted that obligation and later restored it.

European countries that have not abolished mandatory military service are Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Austria, Turkey, Estonia, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Greece and Cyprus.

What message is it being sent?

Former diplomat Nikola Lulunic, of the non-governmental Council of Belgrade for Strategic Policy, is not surprised by the General Staff initiative because, as he says, this “repeatedly repeats”.

But, as a rule, with no detailed explanation, analysis and consequences”, you value Llyunic for REL.

He adds that the “initiative alone shows that Serbia's Armed Forces are facing accumulated problems of meeting the units, which further implies that the current management is not able to solve them”.

The overall military service is one thing of the past and only a professional soldier can effectively respond to modern security threats. Current conflicts have shown that modern combat systems have established technologically sophisticated risks, which recruits are unable to respond to”, Leunic explains.

Asked whether this way sends a political and political message to whom, as well as whether it would spur tensions in the region, Llyunic says that increasing Serbia's military capabilities through a larger conscript contingent “would undoubtedly cause attention in the region and in Europe, and perhaps a similar response to”.

“Tensions in a region with an unfinished history are always problematic and this movement would further undermine the potential for confidence”, he points out.

Serbia is militarily neutral, co-operates with both NATO and Russia

Serbia declares itself militarily neutral and military neutrality involved in the Defence Strategy and the National Security Strategy, which were approved by Parliament in 2019.

In their statements, Serbian officials stress that Serbia does not and will not intend to join NATO, with which it co-operates since 2006 through the Partnership for Peace Programme.

Serbia is a rare country in the Western Balkans that does not want to join NATO's Western military alliance.

Despite warnings from Brussels and Washington that as a candidate country for membership in the European Union, it must harmonise foreign and security policy with the European one, official Belgrade has developed military-technical co-operation with Moscow.

Officials in Serbia did not halt this co-operation even after the launch of Ukraine's Russian occupation in February 2022. / REL/