Which European countries draft women, and why Germany doesn’t

An agreement made by the German government to introduce a voluntary model of military service has sparked a debate within the country about the role of women in the armed forces.

Under the new plan, agreed after months of debate, all 18-year-old men will be considered eligible for service, face mandatory registration and medical screenings and be required to fill out a questionnaire in which they can signal their interest in fully enlisting.

The plan is based on summoning enough volunteers to serve in the military, but if it fails to gather enough numbers, the government will consider other options, including a system that could select people at random.

Whilst the project is in principle gender neutral, only young men will be required to fill out the questionnaire and attend compulsory medical screenings. Women have been invited to sign up, but will not be required to do so.

The distinction has sparked a wave of debate and claims across social media, some of which have blurred the line between criticism and misinformation.

Why are women not obliged to serve in the armed forces?

One post online implies women are being purposefully excluded from the German armed forces, or Bundeswehr; others that Germany is forcing women into the military; and some which frame it as a failure of feminism that the movement has not pushed to make joining a requirement for women.

So, why aren’t women, like men, obliged to register for Germany’s armed forces?

In short, it’s because the German constitution doesn’t allow it — at least not yet.

Article 12a of Germany’s Basic Law says that men may “be required to perform service in the armed forces, the Federal Border Guard or a civil defence organisation from the age of eighteen.” Women are not included in this requirement.

They are not, however, excluded from joining — they are just not legally required to do so.

Since 2001, women have been permitted to serve in military combat posts following a ruling from the European Court of Justice that gave women unrestricted access to military careers. There are more than 24,000 female soldiers currently in the Bundeswehr — around 13% of its military personnel.

Legal experts, campaigners and feminists have said that the element of the constitution excluding women from the armed forces contradicts Article 3(2), which guarantees equal rights for women and men. Equally, others have argued that women are at a fundamental disadvantage to men, which compulsory service would only reinforce.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has signalled he is open to amending the constitution to conscript women, but his pathway is politically fraught.

Adjusting the constitution would require a two-thirds majority in the Bundestag and thus votes from the far left and right.

The Left party has long been opposed to compulsory conscription, women included, and whilst the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is in favour, it is not clear how many of its members would extend this to include women as well as men.

How does Germany compare with the rest of Europe?

Whilst Germany has opted for a volunteer-first model, several of its neighbours have gone further and introduced universal conscription, for men and women alike.

A growing number of European countries have been introducing universal conscription in recent years, particularly in the Nordics.

Norway brought in mandatory military service for women in 2015, making it the first NATO country to do so. Sweden followed suit in 2017 as part of a broader move to reintroduce conscription, after suspending it in 2010.

Most recently, Denmark updated its conscription policy to include women, in a lottery-style system that will come into effect in 2026.

In some countries, it’s a bit more nuanced: the Netherlands technically has female conscription by law, which was brought in in 2018, but this was mostly symbolic because mandatory military service has not been actively enforced since 1997.

Overall, however, Germany is not an outlier in Europe. For countries that have compulsory military service, female enlistment is voluntary for the majority.

Women in Austria, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Switzerland and Ukraine are not required to enlist, unlike men, but they may do so voluntarily for different roles depending on the country.

The same is true in Belarus, Russia and Turkey, and Croatia will join this group in early 2026.

In other European countries, neither women nor men are obliged to serve in the military, but they can volunteer in varying capacities.

Women are increasingly allowed in combat or front-line roles in Europe, including in France, Poland, Spain and the UK.

For example, in the UK, all roles in the armed forces were opened to women in December 2018. In Poland, women have technically been eligible to serve in all military positions since 1999.

In France, women can technically serve in almost all branches of the armed forces, although integration has been gradual: women were permitted on nuclear-armed submarines only in 2017.