PCP communists reject idea, alluding to it providing war mongers with cannon fodder
Like it or not, this is Europe’s new ‘hot topic’ as the war in Ukraine lurches dangerously the wrong way, and talk on Russian television channels has been interpreted as threatening other (particularly Baltic State) countries. Now, a new poll has shown that 47% of Portuguese already believe there should be a return to ‘compulsory military service’, scrapped two decades ago.
According to the coordinator of SEDES’ Security and Defence Observatory, the increase in Portuguese people in favour of compulsory military service is due to growing concern about threats such as war.
Two years ago, the same poll mustered only 40% in favour, against 60% who advocated voluntary service for the country’s youth.
Recent weeks have seen the country’s military calling for a return to compulsory military service, and since the situation in Ukraine has been deteriorating, and since Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk has warned of escalating conflict in Europe, even leader writers have come out in favour.
Today’s tabloid Correio da Manhã carries an opinion column entitled “Here comes the wolf!”
Editor Manuel S. Fonseca refers to Donald Tusk’s warnings; to Putin’s active recruitment drive targeting 18-30 year olds over the next four months, and the fact that Swedes have not just “run to the shelter of NATO” but returned to compulsory military service.
And us, what do we do, he asked: “With Europe in pre-war”, talk in Portugal is focused on ‘recovering the quality of the health service, Justice, education and housing.
“In this state of pre-war, should there be reductions in tax (IRS and IRC)? Perhaps rehabilitation of the Armed Forces, and compulsory military service, should be a priority!”
Clearly a man concerned, if not frustrated, this is an issue that threatens to hang over the country and Europe in general this year.
Up till now, all political parties have essentially balked at a return to the days when young people got an official letter from the government, and soon found themselves boarding a train to the nearest military base for the next few months: conscription is not an immediate vote-catcher. It could put off younger voters, even their parents.
Into the simmering landscape has stepped Paulo Raimundo, the secretary general of the ever-reducing PCP communist party that has notoriously refused to support Ukraine, or even be critical of Russia.
Raimundo has said today that he sees any kind of return to compulsory military service as serving up “cannon fodder” in the current context of the “arms race”. What is needed, he said, is to value the careers of the Armed Forces.
Speaking to journalists after visiting the “Factum” exhibition by photographer Eduardo Gageiro in Lisbon, Raimundo considered that the calls for a return of compulsory military service are being made “in the context of an accentuation of the ballistic discourse, of armaments and war”.
“This conversation is about stepping up the war, and we don’t need war; we need peace. We don’t need armaments; we need a way of dismantling the arms race. We don’t need cannon fodder. We need to value the professionals we currently have and give salaries and careers to the active military”, he argued.
“We’re talking about compulsory military service as a response to the needs that someone wants, for a war that someone wants but which we don’t defend. And that would be a disaster, as we can imagine,” he emphasised.
Last Friday, in an article in Expresso, the Chief of Staff of the Navy, Henrique Gouveia e Melo, said that it may be necessary to “rethink compulsory military service, or another more appropriate variant”, in order to “balance the ratio of expenditure to results” and “generate greater availability of the population for Defence”.
This position has been shared by the Chief of Staff of the Army, Eduardo Ferrão, who, in statements to Expresso, said that “a reintroduction of compulsory military service is justified by being studied and evaluated from various perspectives”.
Compulsory military service ended in 2004. Its end was approved in 1999 by a government led by Socialist António Guterres (now UN secretary general), with a four-year transition period.
Source material: SIC/ LUSA/ Correio da Manhã/ BBC
