Overview

• After interministerial talks, the Foreign Ministry said the ministerial reservation was withdrawn and the draft can now go to the cabinet.
• Defence Minister Boris Pistorius will present the unchanged proposal at Wednesday’s meeting at the Defence Ministry, where the cabinet is slated to decide on it.
• The Union argues the draft lacks binding milestones and seeks numeric personnel targets aligned with NATO capability goals.
• Pistorius’s text would allow call-ups only with Bundestag approval if a rapid expansion is deemed urgently necessary, and he rejects an automatic trigger.
• The Defence Ministry has set volunteer recruitment goals of 15,000 this year, 20,000 in 2026, and 33,000 by 2029.