By Francois Murphy
VIENNA, July 27 (Reuters) – Austria’s coalition government plans to extend military service to nine months from six to adapt to a security landscape changed by the war in Ukraine, it said on Monday.
Neutral Austria’s armed forces have for decades served mainly as a kind of civil protection force, assisting the emergency services during natural disasters such as floods and wildfires, or performing border patrols to intercept illegal immigrants rather than stop advancing foreign troops.
The country has for years been trying to strengthen and better equip its military, which the authorities have long said would be unable to defend the homeland against serious attack by an outside power.
“The security conditions have changed fundamentally in the past years, months and weeks. The dream of a lasting peace in Europe shattered at the latest with the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine,” Chancellor Christian Stocker told a press conference at a military barracks outside Salzburg.
New threats have also emerged including hybrid attacks and cyberwarfare, he said while standing alongside the leaders of the two other ruling parties after a cabinet meeting.
“These developments show clearly that Austria must take charge to a greater extent of its own capabilities for self-reliance and protection of the population,” he added.
Austria is surrounded by eight countries, all but two of which – western neighbours Switzerland and Liechtenstein – are part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It borders Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Italy and Slovenia to the south, and Slovakia and Hungary to the east.
Austrian boys and men currently have the choice, usually around their 18th birthday, between military service and a nine-month civilian alternative in which they typically work at institutions such as an ambulance service or retirement home.
The government said it planned to make it possible to extend so-called civil service by two months on a voluntary basis.
It also plans to switch to a reservist model for military service in which conscripts must carry out follow-up exercises within 10 years of their initial service. To make military service more attractive, perks are planned, such as holiday days and almost doubling pay to 1,000 euros ($1,140) a month.
Making those changes will, however, require passing legislation with a two-thirds majority in parliament, for which the government needs the support of the opposition Greens or the far-right Freedom Party. Those talks have yet to start.
($1 = 0.8794 euros)
(Reporting by Francois Murphy in Vienna; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
