Reporting for Duty

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Croatia will reintroduce compulsory military service starting next year, the country’s defense minister announced this week, a decision that comes amid concerns of escalating regional tensions in Europe since the Ukraine war began in February 2022, the Associated Press reported.

The move will mark a return to conscription which was suspended in 2008, a year before the country joined the NATO military alliance.

Conscription is expected to start on Jan. 1 and the new scheme will enlist around 18,000 young men for a two-month period.

It comes a month after more than 5,000 Croatians signed a petition in opposition to the military draft, Agence-France Presse added. The petition called for the government to scrap the plan and “present alternative policies that would enable the armed forces to fulfill their defense tasks.”

However, government officials have cited growing geopolitical tensions around the world, as well as an arms race and military buildup in the Balkans, which went through a bloody war in the 1990s.

Other European countries are considering or have already reinstated mandatory military service due to rising regional tensions.

Last year, Latvia reintroduced military conscription in response to its perceived threat from Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.

Serbia, Croatia’s main rival in the Balkans, is also contemplating the reactivation of mandatory military service.