- 2.1.2026
The army will propose to the government to introduce administrative conscription. In an interview with Radiožurnál, Chief of the General Staff Karel Řehka said this. It should be an online questionnaire that will show the army who is willing to participate in the defense of the country. Currently, soldiers can only conduct conscription in a crisis, which, according to Řehka, is too late. The probable future Minister of Defense, Jaromír Zůna, did not respond to a question about his position on administrative conscription. On the contrary, the president supported the idea.
“We want to propose that conscription procedures be carried out in peacetime. But let's not imagine it the way it was before. We are thinking of a simple form of administrative conscription, where a person registers online and fills in information about themselves, as is the case in other countries,” said Karel Řehka in an interview with Radiožurnál.
The questionnaire should concern Czech citizens over the age of 18, and in addition to personal data, they should also fill in whether they are willing to voluntarily participate in the country's defense.
“We will try to identify which people are medically fit for service, and also who wants to participate in the defense voluntarily. And for these people, we assume that they would have undergone some form of military training, it will be shorter training within a few weeks,” Řehka explained the plans, adding that the army has already tried such shortened training twice during the summer voluntary military exercise for high school students.
According to the currently valid laws, the army can only resort to conscription during a state of threat to the state or when a state of war is declared. According to Řehka, that is too late: “Our primary goal is to avoid war. But when war starts, we cannot start taking all the measures during a crisis.”
The army chief also stressed that this is not a return to basic military service, which the Czech Republic abolished in 2004. "I fully agree that it was abolished, in the form in which it was, it did not make sense. But before it was abolished, someone should have thought about how the issue of generating reserves for the armed forces would be resolved."
This reserve includes everyone who has been conscripted in the past. Once they reach 60 years of age, they are removed from the reserve. This is tens of thousands of people per year.
On the contrary, new people are joining the reserve very slowly - it is basically growing only with professional soldiers who leave the army or graduates of voluntary military training, which is hundreds of people per year.
The army proposes these changes in a new mobilization concept that it has prepared, and the document is soon to go to the interdepartmental comment procedure. The final decision is therefore up to politicians.
"It is a political decision. The government is responsible for the defense of the country. The government must decide and bears responsibility, and we are aware of this. The role of soldiers is to provide an unbiased, objective and totally honest recommendation, but it is up to politicians to decide," said the army chief.
Radiožurnál also asked the likely future Minister of Defense, Jaromír Zůna, about the introduction of administrative inquiries, but he did not respond.
On the other hand, Petr Pavel supports the idea. "Resuming the administrative act of registering citizens for possible participation in the defense of the state means another register that will allow the state to have an overview of what expertise, how many young people and in what age groups could be counted on if a crisis situation arose," Pavel commented for Radiožurnál.
