Austrians Appear to Reject Changes to Conscript Army
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Version 0 of 1. BERLIN — Austria may have few enemies and no wars to fight, but a majority of its citizens believe that their country is better served by a military filled with conscripts, instead of a smaller, more mobile professional force, according to the initial results of a referendum held Sunday. Nearly 60 percent of voters rejected any change to the traditional system of compulsory military service for all 18-year-old men, according to initial results released Sunday by Austria’s Interior Ministry. The strongest support for the conscription system came from outside of the capital, Vienna, in the country’s rural states, where memories of soldiers shoveling snow in villages buried by an avalanche or heaving sandbags to protect towns from rising rivers appeared to have influenced voters. Opponents of a move to a professional force had also argued that scrapping conscription would rob the country’s social services agencies of thousands of conscientious objectors who carry out a variety of low-paying jobs that would otherwise be difficult to fill, including work done by ambulance drivers and caregivers for the elderly. Proponents of the shift had sought to persuade Austrians that it was time to update their military to bring it into line with most of the country’s partners in the European Union, where 21 nations have moved to a smaller, more streamlined professional force. Germany began phasing out its conscription system in 2011, following a trend set by France, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands. Chancellor Werner Faymann’s Social Democratic Party had proposed moving to a force of 8,500 career soldiers and 9,300 militia members. The proposal also called for reducing the budget for military hardware deemed useless in countering security threats related to terrorism and cyberattacks more than two decades after the end of the cold war. The outcome of Sunday’s vote is not politically binding, but Austria’s politicians said they would honor it, regardless of which way the people decided. The debate leading up to the vote was viewed by many as a precursor to national parliamentary elections that are to be held in September, because it pitted the two main political parties currently joined in an uneasy governing coalition — the Social Democratic Party and the People’s Party — against each other. If the preliminary results showing 59.8 percent in favor of maintaining conscription are upheld, it would bode well for the center-right People’s Party, which favored maintaining the 35,000-member conscription military as the best way to ensure neutral Austria’s security. The Social Democrats had argued that it was time to transform the country’s military into a professional force and suggested that a well-paid professional army and a separate civil service would end up costing taxpayers less. But their proposal drew the support of only 40.2 percent of the three million voters who turned out Sunday, according to the preliminary figures. Mr. Faymann told reporters in Vienna on Sunday that he accepted the decision and would have his defense minister, Norbert Darabos, draw up a proposal to improve and update the current system. “Nobody stands above the sovereign decision of the people,” Mr. Faymann said. |