Germany launches voluntary military service with new incentives

President Donald Trump has launched his campaign to get Europe in general and Germany in particular to spend more of its budget on defense during his first term, and it is starting to pay off in Europe’s economic powerhouse, the Federal Republic of Germany.

Germany’s coalition government – ​​Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union and Social Democrats – agreed to a new system of incentives for voluntary military service after a heated debate last week to address the growing threat from Russia on the European continent.

Recruitment incentives include free access to driving licenses. The cost of a driver’s license can reach several thousand dollars. The second incentive is an increase in the existing pre-tax salary at the starting level, to approximately $3,000 per month.

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North Rhine-Westphalia, Ahlen: Recruits during combat training as part of a media day for basic training in the 7 reconnaissance battalion of the Bundeswehr. Politicians from the CDU/CSU and SPD have agreed on a national plan for the new military service. (Federico Gambarini/photo alliance via Getty Images)

Conservative German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said at the start of his term that Germany’s armed forces would be transformed into “the most powerful conventional army in Europe”, Jens Spahn, the parliamentary leader of Merz’s CDU party, told reporters on Thursday. “We want to rally as many young people as possible in the service of the homeland.”

Spahn added that if the voluntary model does not guarantee enough soldiers and military personnel, “we will have to make it mandatory.” Spahn noted, however, that the move toward compulsory conscription would mean a new law would have to be passed.

David Wurmser, who worked for the U.S. Navy Reserve as an intelligence officer, as a lieutenant commander and former senior advisor for nonproliferation and Middle East strategy to Vice President Dick Cheney, told Fox News Digital that “Europe is finally starting to look at defense more seriously.”

“Although it has never been their official policy, in recent decades Europeans have taken for granted the American umbrella and the inconceivability of war, both to largely minimize the burden of defense they share, and also posited themselves as a kind of world-dominating moral conscience that ranged from pacifism to impossible moral perfection. It is a good thing that they are now forced to start thinking soberly about their defense and what it might do involve.”

President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz meet in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, June 5, 2025. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

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He added that “it is important that we in the United States begin to understand that the center of gravity of European civilization is shifting eastward. The fact that Germany, before Britain and France, seemed to appreciate the threat it faced, and the resulting need to mount a more robust defense, is symbolic of this shift eastward.”

According to Wurmser, “Symbolically, Germany’s actions represent a long-awaited awakening, but one that is not yet universally understood. What happened in February 2022, as well as what is happening in the Middle East against Israel, are only localized versions of a much larger, dangerous and potentially deadly global competition waged by multiple nations in opposition to Western civilization. »

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Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, watches the Victory Day military parade marking the 75th anniversary of the Nazi defeat in Moscow. (Sergei Guneyev/Host Photo Agency via AP, File)

He said: “This axis represents the fusion of communist, Islamist and fascist thoughts. This unnatural alliance, which is an improbable alliance, is rooted above all in disgust for Western civilization. The West will not survive if it does not realize this, and what Germany is doing is to some extent a first small step in that direction. »

Trump urged Germany to pay more to the United States for Germany’s military defense during his first term.