Lithuania could introduce mandatory military service for women only when it has a universal male conscription in place, according to President Gitanas Nausėda’s chief national security advisor.
“This is a complex issue and it is difficult to rally political will around it,” Kęstutis Budrys told the radio Žinių Radijas on Tuesday.
“We should begin with the universal draft for young men – we already have voluntary service – and then the second phase should still be implemented. It would not be possible to do everything in one go,” the adviser said.
“Calling up women and men at the same time almost triples the cost, because the nature of the infrastructure is also changing,” he added.
His comment comes after the Lithuanian Business Confederation and the association Lyderė (Female Leader) have called on the Defence Ministry to initiate discussions on a mandatory military draft for women.
The business organisations say that some decisions on the inclusion of women in military service could be implemented immediately, such as drafting women based on a list of professions that the Armed Forces need.
The Defence Ministry has recently tabled a military draft reform bill to the parliament, but it does not provide either for universal conscription of men or compulsory military service for women.
Commenting on the proposed changes, Budrys said that Lithuania should aim for universal conscription and talk about the reform “in the context of universal conscription, when and how we will implement it”.
“If we don’t reach the targeted 3,800 conscripts annually now, but gather fewer, then envisioning a reform that would get us to 5,000, there would be another 1,000 or 1,500 left until we reach 6,000, speaking about young men, and we would have almost universal conscription,” the adviser said.
“Now, [...] apart from introducing flexibility and reducing the time of service, it is not very clear what number [of conscripts] we want to increase,” he added.
The Defence Ministry’s proposals include shortening the duration of the basic compulsory military service to six months, from the current nine, for some conscripts, and making it mandatory for higher education students to do their military service either by enrolling in the Junior Officer Command Training Programme or by joining the National Defence Volunteer Force.
Under the bill, the conscription age limit would be set at 18-21 years, instead of the current 18-23.
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