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CDU leader Friedrich Merz during an on-site visit at the Isar 2 nuclear power plant in Essenbach
Photo: IMAGO/Boris Schumacher / IMAGO/HMB Media
Should young adults in Germany be obliged to do social service?
The idea has been discussed in politics for a few weeks - now CDU leader Friedrich Merz was also open.
"I don't have a personal opinion yet, but my basic stance is more towards a mandatory year than on a voluntary basis," said Merz, who is also chairman of the Union faction in the Bundestag, in an interview with the dpa news agency in Berlin.
"I'm surprised at how much approval there is, especially among the younger generation, for such a mandatory year in Germany," he added.
At the CDU party conference on September 9th and 10th in Hanover, there will be two motions for a so-called “Germany Year”.
While one aims more at a mandatory year, the other pleads more for voluntariness in connection with incentives such as the crediting of pension points or relaxation of the numerus clausus.
The 66-year-old Merz now emphasized that the feedback from school classes and visitor groups in Berlin on the suggestion of a compulsory time was “positive across the board.
But I also know the arguments that speak against it.« He was pleased that the Federal President had positioned himself so clearly on such a question.
'Now we're discussing it.
If there are other opinions, all the better.
Then we have an interesting political debate.«
Faeser: "Chances are rather manageable at the moment"
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier initiated a new discussion about the mandatory year in June.
He advocated that young people in Germany should serve a compulsory social service.
That does not have to be in the Bundeswehr, young men and women can also support social institutions such as retirement homes, homeless shelters or in the care of disabled people.
Steinmeier did not say how long the service should last – but it does not have to be a year.
However, the Federal President's initiative also met with strong criticism.
"Compulsory social service would mean an encroachment on the individual freedom of every young person," criticized the Green Party Minister for Family Affairs, Lisa Paus.
Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) and deputy government spokesman Wolfgang Büchner also announced that the federal government would continue to rely on voluntariness.
Most recently, however, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) spoke out in favor of the social year.
Faeser described the chances of finding political majorities for this as "rather manageable at the moment".
But she explained: "But I think we have to keep discussing that too."
mrc/dpa