DK - The defense is a year behind with a call for a session: "It's a problem"

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The defense is a year behind with a call for a session: "It's a problem"​

After two years with the corona, the Armed Forces has accumulated a hump of 33,500 people who have not been called up for Defense Day. This can be a problem, not least if the number of conscripts is to increase rapidly.

The defense has accumulated a hump of 33,500 people waiting to come to the session. Here is the conscript on exercise at Høvelte Barracks.
Photo: Sofie Mathiassen


Sunday, March 20, 2022, at 16.13
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  SØREN FRANK
  Food and wine editor

In a situation where Russia has launched an invasion of Ukraine, and several parties are demanding that the number of conscripts be raised significantly, it now turns out that there is a significant backlog on the call for Defense Day (formerly known as session).

Pr. March 7 this year is the concrete backlog of 33,500 young people who have not been summoned to a session in the period they were promised, it shows a statement, which DR has been given access to by the Ministry of Defense's Personnel Agency. Normally, the Armed Forces performs about 40,000 session treatments a year, so that equates to a one-year delay.

The delay is due to the corona. In the last two years, the number of session treatments has been below 24,000 a year, because the Armed Forces has not been able to convene the usual number of potential conscripts due to, among other things, assembly bans. The problem now is that a hump of 33,500 people is not just something that can just be settled from one day to the next, since the Armed Forces does not have the necessary capacity.

At the session, it is tested whether the young people are suitable for the Defense Service, after which the suitable ones draw a number if it should become necessary to call in more than those who volunteer.

The Liberal Party's defense spokesman Lars Christian Lilleholt has asked Minister of Defense Morten Bødskov (S) to allocate the necessary resources to settle the session hump.
Photo: Emil Helms.

The hump is a problem​

“It is a problem that there are young people who are barred from immediately completing their military service. The young people risk pushing their education unnecessarily. And the Armed Forces risks missing out on some highly motivated young people who could have been a resource for the Armed Forces, not least with a view to further education within the Armed Forces, «says the Liberal Party's defense spokesman Lars Christian Lilleholt to Berlingske.

Lilleholt has thus asked Minister of Defense Morten Bødskov (S) to allocate the necessary resources to settle the session hump. The Ministry of Defense states in an email to DR that the ministry is working on a solution that takes into account the backlog.

According to the Armed Forces itself, the backlog has not meant that there has been a lack of conscripts. In 2021, 4,770 people, of whom 99 percent are volunteers, began military service in Denmark.

However, the hump could prove to be a problem if the number of conscripts is to be increased considerably in the future, as the Liberal Party proposes. While the Conservatives want a doubling and the Danish People's Party a tripling, Lars Christian Lilleholt will not put figures on the increase in the number of conscripts in the future:

“It depends on how many the Armed Forces see themselves able to train. The premise is that one can find something sensible for them to do. We must not have young people in who end up being a burden to themselves and the Armed Forces, "says Lars Christian Lilleholt.

Forsvaret er et år bagefter med indkaldelse til session: »Det er et problem«

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www.berlingske.dk