When I tell European friends that Greece still has mandatory, severely underpaid, and male-only military conscription they are usually left slack-jawed, and I am left embarrassed from tarnishing their idyllic image of our country.
Mandatory military conscription is the biggest unspoken issue for young Greeks and their families. Our reluctance to discuss it reveals a conservative, nationalistic, and sexist mindset far from European social standards. It is time to modernize, or at least stop the pretense that there is nothing wrong.
Last month’s announcements by Greece’s Minister for National Defence, Nikos Dendias, highlight the need for further discussion on the issue of military conscription. At his 24 July press conference, Dendias confirmed that sweeping changes were coming to what he called the “citizens’ army.”
These include scrapping conscription for the air force and navy and an increase of base pay from €8.50 per month to €50 for those serving in the mainland and €100 for those at border posts and islands. The Greek Defence Minister tried to sell this paltry increase by stating that a conscript would be able to have “money in his pocket to buy a coffee.”
Beyond the flippancy, two questions remain: Is mandatory military conscription for men good for Greeks? And why is abolition off the table?
The social implications of the current system are stark.
It is not uncommon to hear of young men faking psychological conditions to get a “τρελόχαρτο”, a colloquial Greek term for the phony medical diagnosis of a psychological condition preventing someone from serving.
In addition, conscientious objectors face longer, more distant assignments 25–67% longer than regular conscripts. The European Bureau for Conscientious Objectors has called Greece’s alternative service “punitive and discriminatory” and in 2024 lodged a formal complaint with the European Committee of Social Rights.
Typically, there is severe social stigma around those who try to avoid service especially by resorting to faking medical diagnoses. The real shame however is a system so broken that evasion seems like the only choice. A conscript’s life is synonymous with poor living conditions, hazing known as “καψόνια” in Greek, and boredom, creating a draconian cocktail of forced patriotism and social obligation.
Mandatory conscription in Greece has three major flaws which are substantial enough to call for its abolition.
First, it encourages and extends a system of blatant institutional and social corruption from the very moment young men leave their family homes. For a conscript, getting a “good” post close to home or in a back office often depends on family connections in the military.
This is a symptom of deeper institutional malaise. The fact that national service is entrenched in a system of patronage is shameful, and it ought to be called out for what it is. Ending conscription will not cure corruption, but it would alleviate a societal pressure from people’s lives.
Second, it wastes economic potential. Around 50,000 conscripts serve according to data cited by the European Parliament, the highest number out of the nine EU member states which implement a system of peacetime conscription. In a recovering economy, these young men could instead be working or innovating alongside their sisters.
Families also bear much, if not all, of the financial cost of sending their sons to the military for a year. Even with the new announced pay increase, conscripts could earn roughly one-eighth of the national minimum wage.
On the other hand, Austria and Lithuania pay over €600 per month for shorter service, much closer to their respective costs of living, albeit still unsatisfactory. Forcing tens of thousands out of the labour market to “serve” at a substantial personal economic cost for a year undermines both economic growth and morale.
Third, it is blatantly sexist. The Greek Constitution states in article 4.2 that “Greek men and women have equal rights and obligations.” However, Article 4.6 states that only able-bodied Greek men, this distinction is clear in the Greek language version, are “obliged to contribute to the defense of the Fatherland.” This is a blatant differentiation of rights and obligations based solely on sex.
Women may volunteer; men who refuse are sometimes labelled cowards or traitors in conservative family circles. Ultimately, this begs the logical question that since women don’t have to serve, are they not as much a ‘patriot’ as the men who have?
It is clear that mandatory conscription for men only presents a Gordian Knot of social questions which a modern European society should not struggle with.
There are arguments for military conscription in peacetime, but they pale in comparison to the consequences.
Proponents argue conscription is necessary for national defense, especially given tensions with Türkiye. But Greece’s security rests not on untrained conscripts but on its membership of the EU and NATO, its strategic partnership with the United States, and its professional armed forces. The nature of the Mediterranean’s geopolitics cannot, and should not, be framed around young conscripts.
The “Finnish model” is also often cited as an example to follow. Yet Finland faces a real and immediate threat from Russia. Despite this, Finland still spends comparatively less of its GDP on defense than Greece; 2.41% compared to Greece’s 3.08% (2024), one of the highest in NATO.
In Finland, service terms are shorter and its alternative civil service is respected and integrated into the functioning social state. This is not a reality which would work under the current maladies plaguing the Greek state, currently embroiled in massive institutional corruption scandals.
Some say conscription fosters a spirit of giving back to the country. But that assumes a functioning social contract, something which has been consistently ground down over the years for Greece’s youth.
The generation currently being called to national service in Greece grew up during the financial crisis, watching parents struggle with unemployment, spikes in poverty, and deepening corruption. Then came the Tempi rail tragedy, further exposing the meekness of the state.
In two decades, Greece has failed to offer its youth stable opportunities. To claim young men owe the state a year of their lives is an insult; the debt runs the other way.
Lastly, from a philosophical standpoint, Greece should not simply copy other states to justify its system of conscription. In the wake of the Peloponnesian war, Pericles gave his Funeral Oration to comfort a crowd of grieving mothers, widows, and countrymen by saying:
“Our [Athens’] constitution does not copy the laws of neighboring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves.”
His words have echoed through the ages, and it should be asked whether the system of conscription in Greece is truly something to be envied.
This opinion piece was selected to be published within the framework of To BHMA International Edition’s NextGen Corner, a platform for upcoming voices to share their views on the defining issues of our time.
Odysseas Digbassanis is a Brussels-based public policy and foreign affairs analyst with experience at the International Labour Organization, the Permanent Representation of Greece to the EU, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and in the private sector. He holds degrees in modern diplomatic history and politics from the London School of Economics (LSE) and the University of Warwick. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
