Michael Haiden / Jun 2025
Photo: Shutterstock
Most European nations still only allow their citizens to serve in the armed forces. For the EU’s strategic autonomy, this is an unnecessary obstacle.
In the face of Trump’s America and an emboldened Putin in Russia, Europe is arming itself. Increased defence spending is a good start, but Europe’s military has another major obstacle: recruitment. To get enough people signed up to their armed forces, European nations must toss the status quo aside and work together to fill gaps across borders. Our continent’s defence requires pragmatism.
The EU commission is speeding up arms procurement and easing debt rules, while countries like Germany are investing hundreds of billions into infrastructure and defence. This is a big shift. After years of under-investment and worries about debt, money is no longer an issue – at least when it comes to defence.
This is a welcome development for a continent that has, for too long, outsourced its security to the United States. With a bellicose Russia and an unreliable White House, Europe is waking up to the challenges it faces.
At least, the political class is. However, funding is not the only issue. European governments could struggle to gather enough manpower to actually use it. Europe is, after all, an aging continent. Besides, are European citizens willing to join up to their armed forces?
To secure this, countries have military drafts. They ensure the army is always occupied and provide at least some military training to adult men. Germany, for example, has been discussing if it should reintroduce the draft after abolishing it years ago. Due to years of financial neglect, it is uncertain if the German army could even handle a drastic expansion of its numbers that a draft would bring.
At the same time, Germany avoids using all its potential for voluntary recruits. The German army – and those of other European countries – only allow citizens to join. But in an era of free movement in the EU, millions of Europeans live in other EU-nations than those they hold citizenship of. A Polish citizen might be eager to defend Europe, but if they live in Munich, Berlin, or Frankfurt, they would have no option to do so, if they don’t want to leave their life in Germany behind. Faced with such a choice, many will opt to stay.
It seems logical to offer such a person the choice to join the German army instead. Not only would this enlarge the pool of potential recruits – more than 5 million EU-nationals live in Germany – it would also provide greater European integration. Granting foreign EU-nationals the same rights as citizens with regards to the armed forces reiterates the legal and political equality of all EU citizens. It shows that an Italian living in Germany is just as capable of defending the country they call home.
An integrated EU army with a central command is still far away. Europe’s nations have many different strategic goals and unifying them will take time and effort. In the meantime, it would be a step towards greater European unity if Germans and EU-nationals could serve side-by-side in the German army – or the armies of other European nations. It could forge a new understanding of European defence that is not based on nationalism, but on the desire to defend our common way of life.
A draft might ultimately still be necessary. But before taking such a step, governments can explore voluntary ways to increase their armed forces. It would be a wasted opportunity for European integration if German citizens were drafted into the army while EU nationals who wanted to join voluntarily are barred from doing so. This is not only a German issue. In other large EU nations which want to expand their military, such as Italy, only citizens can join.
Decades ago, it would have been unthinkable to have an Italian serve in the German army while a German serves in the Italian army. But the goal of the EU was to overcome such nationalist frameworks. It has already established the legal equality of EU citizens in many contexts. To achieve strategic autonomy, it must push this effort further. For this to happen, politicians and voters must understand that European soldiers no longer just protect their country, but the whole EU.
