Germany's SPD averts clash over military service at party conference

Germany's centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) has avoided a major dispute over compulsory military service at a party conference in Berlin, dpa learnt on Saturday.

After hours of crisis talks, a motion by the party's youth wing to reject the inclusion of a compulsory draft in an upcoming bill by SPD Defence Minister Boris Pistorius was amended.

The updated motion, set to be voted on at the conference in Berlin, now says: "We do not want any legal option to call up conscripts that can be activated before all measures for voluntary increases have been exhausted."

"We want to enable measures to recruit, register and keep track of of young men liable for military service," it added.

Under the SPD's coalition agreement with Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservative bloc, the new German government has committed to seeking a voluntary military service.

However, amid the threat from Russia, the German military - the Bundeswehr - is seeking to recruit at least 60,000 more soldiers to fit with new NATO capability targets.

This has led to a renewed debate over whether a compulsory military service is needed in Germany, more than a decade after it was suspended.

The move is not popular with the SPD base, or with the party's pacifist fringe.

However, the motion recognizes the need for faster recruitment. "We must be able to react when the security situation or the needs of the Bundeswehr require it," it said.

The SPD is currently holding a three-day national conference in Berlin, months after the party suffered a historic defeat in February's parliamentary elections, plunging to 16% of the vote.