Germany could reinstate conscription as early as late July 2027 because its volunteer-based recruitment system is insufficient to meet Berlin’s military buildup plans, senior lawmaker Thomas Rowekamp has told AFP.

Following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Germany has pursued a major recruitment drive, aiming to increase Bundeswehr personnel from the current 186,000 to 260,000 active soldiers and another 200,000 reservists by the mid-2030s, citing the supposed “Russian threat.”

Late last year, the German parliament passed the Military Service Modernization Act obliging all 18-year-old males to register for potential service by filling out a questionnaire and undergoing a medical checkup. Potential recruits are allowed to state they have no interest in joining the military in any capacity. The legislation, however, stipulates that recruits could be called up via lottery should the armed forces face manpower shortages.

Only 530 people volunteered for military service between January and May out of some 300,000 Germans who filled out the forms under the new law, AFP reported.

“In the first half of next year ... we will need to have a very fundamental discussion about whether we can achieve the very ambitious growth requirements for active forces and reservists on a voluntary basis,” Rowekamp, who heads the parliament’s defense committee and represents Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, told AFP over the weekend. He added that he had “serious doubts that we can.”

The MP insisted that Germany would have to “return to conscription” if it fails to meet the projected recruitment numbers. “We must take that decision by July 31 of next year,” he said.

The government’s policies sparked a wave of major youth demonstrations against the potential reintroduction of conscription earlier this year. In March, a thousands-strong ‘School strike against the draft’ took place in Berlin, with similar actions held in other German cities.

Germany abolished conscription in 2011. Senior German officials, including Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, have recently mulled bringing it back, citing the need to prepare for potential Russian “aggression.” Pistorius claimed last year that Russia could attack a NATO member “as early as 2028,” insisting on the need for a costly military buildup.

Merz also announced plans to transform the German army into the strongest conventional armed force in the EU.

Moscow has repeatedly dismissed claims that it poses a threat to European countries as “nonsense” and even suggested providing written guarantees that it has no plans to attack them.

President Vladimir Putin said last week that Western nations are openly preparing for war with Russia while using claims about a ‘Russian threat’ to justify their sweeping militarization.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned that Germany and the wider EU are sliding into what he had called a militarist “Fourth Reich” with their military buildup drive.