CONSCRIPTION [is to be] reintroduced in 2019, with basic military training for both women and men within the framework of the law on national service. It is proposed, from the investigation on the future supply of personnel in the Armed Forces, experience SvD. If the proposals are implemented conscription [will be] back in Sweden in a few years, Svenska Dagbladet reports in the second article in a series of 8 on the Swedish State of Defence.
The inquiry's mandate is to make recommendations on "a sustainable supply of staff of the armed forces" and added the government for less than a year ago. The work is now almost completed and the proposals nailed. The content of the final adjusted at a meeting next week and presented at the end of September.
The highlight of the proposal is that conscription is reintroduced, as a complement to the voluntary professional defense. In order to revive conscription as soon as 2019 suggests the investigation ,also reportedly told SvD, that Recruitment Agency in 2017 will ask the country's 17-year-olds to fill in questionnaires as a basis for future selection before enrollment.
In 2018, call for the selected group, now a year older - 18-year-olds - for enrollment at Recruitment Agency, just like in the old conscription system. In 2019 begins the military basic training for the duty placed on the now 19-year-old soldiers at the country's regiments.
The big difference to the old-time general conscription is that only a few thousand in each year of about 100 000 people will be charged for compulsory service in the armed forces. While both women and men will be required to do military service, according to the law on national service that was introduced in 1995. The law is gender-neutral and applies equally to all.
The Investigator on behalf of the government is Annika Nordgren Christensen, former Defense politician and Member of Parliament for the Green Party. She would not comment on the proposals before the staff investigation is handed over to the government, but told SvD that the directives are "specific" and that "it is clear what the government wants us to achieve."
- We have to relate to the dormant law on national service. The mission is to find how we can make a system that continued emphasis on free will and how should you combine it with the duty of service as they do in Norway and Denmark under the current law, says Nordgren Christensen.
The inquiry directives, the Government states that there should be "a balance between duty and volunteerism" and that "existing law", and that duty law should not be changed.
A central question is how Recruitment Authority shall make the selection when selecting which ones to do national service. The investigation is based on the current system where everyone aged 18 fills in a so-called contingency basis on its website with issues of health, education, interests and more. Now it is used to bring in volunteers.
When conscription will return brings forward this process by one year and instead encompasses all 17-year olds. How many 18 year olds who will then be charged for enrollment is determined by the defense needs. So far, the figure has averaged 4,000 per year, the commission's proposals will be higher, including volunteers. What that pattern based on fitness, willingness and interest of the military defense.
Total enrollment can cover about 10,000 people. About a third, a few thousand people each year, will be levied for military conscription.
The Committee's proposals will be gender-neutral according to law. Women and men are treated equally with the same rights and obligations and signed on the same grounds without the quota system. The guidance will be special and preferential treatment of the under-represented group at the same qualifications.
The volunteer recruitment will be finalised in the future. Those who accept a job in the Armed Forces and meet the requirements will take their military basic training under the same duty legislation as conscripts. All volunteers are then reviewed in the scheme. The idea is equality of treatment between the two categories when training is well underway.
Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist has long argued for a return to some form of national service as a complement to professional armed forces. In a parliamentary debate last spring, he noted that there should be "no rush job", but also stressed that "the current system does not hold" when the defense cannot handle the recruitment on a voluntary basis.
- When you cannot wait indefinitely, or prolong this unnecessarily, but then you have to hurriedly come to a decision, said Hultqvist in the debate.
Investigation The proposals now put forward are tailored to the defense minister's wishes.
- This is the big question for Peter Hultqvist. He has invested both his own credibility and a lot of prestige to find a solution on defense emergency personnel problems. These proposals give him the opportunity and he is in a hurry to get this in place, a well-placed source told SvD.
It is also entirely up to S-MP government to decide if they want to match the commission's proposal to his and reintroduce conscription in 2019. After military service was suspended in 2010, the Government was also mandated to independently activate all or parts of the law on national service of emergency reasons. It could be done now, without going through a parliamentary decision.
- Regarding the duty instrument, I would recall that it is the government that disposes of the decision, not the parliament, as Peter Hultqvist put it in the debate last spring.
[OCEANUSLive Note: Conscription in Sweden was suspended in 2010 introduced instead a purely professional military. Armed Forces recruiting soldiers, sailors, and squad leaders only on a voluntary basis.]
Photos by: Yvonne Åsell and Tomas Oneborg.
Source: Svenksa Dagbladet [Swedish language]
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