The German government hopes that the new military service bill passed last week will help make this a reality, strengthening Germany's defense forces.
Comprehensive reform will see the German army increase from about 180,000 today to 260,000 regular soldiers and 200,000 reserve soldiers by 2035.
The campaign will focus on voluntary military service, with more incentives for subscribers, including a monthly starting salary of 2,600 euros, an increase of 450 euros compared to the current level.
If the new targets are not achieved, the German government will have a plan to call for mandatory military service when necessary.
From next year, all 18-year-olds in Germany will receive a questionnaire on their military wishes. For men, answering this question mark is mandatory. From 2027, men from 18 years old will also have to undergo mandatory medical tests.
Ms. Minna Alander - a research associate at the Europe Program of the London-based Chatham House Research Institute, UK, believes that Germany has the potential to play an important role in Europe's regular defence, thanks to its central geographical location.
If the plan to achieve the new number of troops comes true, it will be very good for Europe, but it could happen around 2030, she said.
Before the new bill, the coalition partners - the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the center-left Social Democratic Union (SPD) - had been arguing for weeks over which form of military service should be applied.
There is an idea of "a lottery-style military service regime", according to which the young man will be selected for a health check and called up for military service.
The idea has been rejected by Defense Minister Boris Pistorius. He said that military service should focus on incentives such as higher salaries and other financial compensation.
Before 2011, Germany applied a mandatory military service for men aged 18-23 years, but later switched to a completely voluntary military regime.
The new bill needs to be approved by the German parliament (Bundestag) and lawmakers are expected to vote at the end of this year. If approved, the policy will take effect on January 1, 2026.
The restoration of the mandatory military service regime is still controversial in Germany. The Forsa poll published by Die Welt in October, before the reforms were published, showed that 80% of voters of the left-wing Die Linke party opposed the idea.
However, given the size of Germany's population, Minna Alander believes it is possible to achieve the military quota without having to be called up for mandatory military service.
The German armed forces, or Bundeswehr, have been lacking in budget for years since the Cold War. In the three decades since the fall of the Berlin wall, military spending in Germany remains below 2% of GDP, below NATO's target.
After the conflict in Ukraine broke out in 2022, then-German Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared a "Zeitenwende", or "age of change", leading to the establishment of a special fund worth 100 billion euros to modernize the Bundeswehr.
The change has been deepened since Merz took office earlier this year, with a commitment to turning the German armed forces into "the strongest regular army in Europe" as well as a commitment to double defense spending to meet NATO's targets.
