The House of Representatives is calling for a rapid expansion of the Defense service year to several thousand participants. Responsible State Secretary Christophe van der Maat does not yet want to commit to such a figure, he said in a debate about personnel and equipment.
According to Silvio Erkens (VVD), expansion of the service year can contribute to eliminating the major shortage of military personnel. He advocates scaling up very quickly to 4,000 participants per year. Other parties see value in this, as became apparent in the debate.
Last year the voluntary service year started with 132 soldiers, service year participants were also housed at the 43 Mechanized Brigade in Havelte. In Havelte there were twelve participants, more than half of whom are expected to remain associated with Defense.
The service year is aimed at school leavers. This year the number should grow to 625 and reach 1,000 participants a year later. Van der Maat sees this year increasing to ‘3000, 4000 in the slightly longer term’.
The generals will decide on the number of participants, the State Secretary said. He will also investigate whether it is possible to send a survey to all 17-year-olds asking them whether they would like to contribute to the armed forces. Initially, the questionnaire will be voluntary, because a mandatory survey requires legislation.
There are currently thousands of vacancies in the armed forces and at the same time the armed forces must also grow. The ministry wants to achieve this by, among other things, recruiting more reservists, bringing in more people to serve and better cooperation with the business community.