Gouveia e Melo rejects the old Mandatory Military Service and asks for a “new response” | Armed forces

Henrique Gouveia e Melo, Chief of Staff of the Navy, rejected this Wednesday the old models of Mandatory Military Service, which were in force until 2004. He defends a “new response” consensual between political power and society to mobilize the population in limit situations.

“The old model [do Serviço Militar Obrigatório] It’s precisely that, the old model. A new answer has to be found. This is not something that can be found tomorrow, it has to be discussed, it has to be a response that the political power accepts, that the population accepts, because only all of us together can give a response that is a response from the country itself”, he considered the admiral speaking to journalists, at the Lisbon Naval Base, in Almada.

Gouveia e Melo argues that, through the opinion article he published in the weekly Expresso on March 28th, he tried to “warn of an imminent danger”. “We all know, and I think it’s public, that there is a shortage of personnel in the Armed Forces and we have to try to resolve that, it’s not with mandatory recruitment as has been said. But that’s a problem. Then there’s another problem that It is the ability to quickly mobilize the population to defend ourselves in case of extreme need”, he highlights.

In the opinion of the Navy’s military chief, “the political power and the military, at the right time, will discuss what is the best way to do this”. “But there will certainly be formulas, other countries are already testing new formulas, so it is a matter of time, intelligence and will, essentially will, to solve a problem that is at our doorstep”, he highlights.

When asked if he does not regret having raised the topic of Mandatory Military Service (SMO), Gouveia e Melo responds: “As a military man, I do not regret talking about issues that involve the defense of the country, of Europe, and with two pillars essential elements that are NATO, which is our sovereignty, and the European Union, which is our prosperity. And that is all at stake today.”

“In the past, if you asked me if I agreed with the SMO when our actions were more expeditionary and there was not a war in Europe and a conventional war, which is a very violent aggression, I would say no. Therefore, we have to adapt to reality and the reality is that there is an aggression in Europe that could call into question our way of being as we see it today”, adds Gouveia e Melo.

On Friday, in an article in Expresso, the Chief of Staff of the Navy, Admiral Henrique Gouveia e Melo, stated that it may be necessary to “reconsider mandatory military service, or another more appropriate variant”, in order to ” balance the expenditure/results ratio” and “generate greater availability of the population for Defense”.

This position was also shared by the Chief of Staff of the Army, Eduardo Ferrão, who, in statements to Expresso, argued that “a reintroduction of compulsory military service is justified to be studied and evaluated from various perspectives”. On Monday, April 1, Mariana Mortágua spoke out against the return of mandatory military service and the topic was also commented on by other political representatives.

Mandatory Military Service ended in 2004. Its end was approved in 1999, by an executive led by the socialist António Guterres, establishing a transition period of four years. The transition to professionalization was completed in September 2004, two months before the scheduled date, November 19, with Paulo Portas as Minister of Defense.