Overview
- Defence Committee chair Thomas Röwekamp urges mustering all young men and calls for defined selection criteria, citing options such as a lottery, graded fitness ratings or needs-based profiles.
- Generalinspekteur Carsten Breuer has endorsed full cohort screening, and multiple reports say Boris Pistorius also favors comprehensive mustering despite rejecting the earlier lottery-centered compromise.
- A four-person team from SPD and Union — Siemtje Möller, Norbert Röttgen, Thomas Erndl and Falko Droßmann — is working to forge a new deal before Monday’s Defence Committee hearing, where youth representatives will also appear.
- The draft remains in the Bundestag process with a planned start on 1 January 2026 to support growth from roughly 182,000 active personnel toward a target near 260,000.
- Pistorius faces mounting criticism from Union figures for failing to provide detailed personnel and materiel plans and for derailing a prior intra-coalition agreement that relied on a lottery mechanism.