Minister of National Defense Arvydas Anušauskas does not rule out that non-permanent military service on weekends could be performed not only by volunteers, but also by conscripts. The minister points out that the planned reform of conscripts includes the goal of establishing training companies in the volunteer forces of the national defense for those who would like to serve on weekends.
"The reform of conscripts also foresees the goal of creating paid companies in the national defense volunteer forces for those young people who would like to undergo full military training on weekends within three years. Here is one of the dozen choices that would appear. And there would be an opportunity to directly serve those six or nine months in the volunteer force in the training companies. Now there are no such units at all," the minister told LRT radio on Tuesday.
When asked whether conscripts could also perform military service on weekends, A. Anušauskas assured that such an option could be defined by law.
"It could, I think the choice will obviously be defined by law, but I think it could." Now the national defense volunteer forces include young people and those who have just finished their service and, of course, a large part of those people stay in the volunteer forces on average for five, sometimes more years due to various circumstances. The rotation takes place, which is why more and more new people need to be involved in volunteering, it is such a non-stop process," said the minister.
ELTA reminds that at the beginning of January, the Minister of National Defense A. Anušauskas presented the planned reorganization of the conscript service. According to him, this transformation is intended to reduce the service time to half a year, increase the number of conscripts and the active military reserve. Half of the conscripts who completed 6 months of service would be assigned to the reserve, the other half would continue to test service voluntarily for another 3 months. A. Anušauskas says, this would be almost equivalent to a universal call.
Rugilė Augustaitytė (ELTA)
