About 1,600 recruits reported for duty in Denmark on August 3, the first intake under a conscription system that now covers women as well as men. Each will serve 11 months, up from four.
The recruits train for five months in a basic course, then spend six months on operational tasks. Some of the first conscripts are headed to Greenland. More than 100 military personnel are expected to go there this month for about a month, doing work that was previously done only by professional units.
What the reform changes
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen unveiled the plan on March 13, 2024. She said the government wanted “full equality between the sexes”, and Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said a more robust draft should help with “national mobilisation and manning our armed forces”. Women could already volunteer. Now Denmark joins Norway and Sweden as the only European countries to require them to serve, according to the BBC.
The numbers rise too. In the year before the announcement, 4,700 people did military service, about a quarter of them women. The annual intake is to grow from 5,000 to 7,500 by 2033.
Selection is by lottery among citizens aged 18 and older who meet health requirements. For years most places were filled by volunteers, and the draw only made up the shortfall. Denmark’s armed forces numbered about 20,000 active personnel in 2024, including some 9,000 professionals.
The security case
Frederiksen tied the reform to the war in Ukraine. “We do not rearm because we want war. We are rearming because we want to avoid it,” she said in 2024. Tensions in Europe have spiked since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, and Denmark has been one of Kyiv’s staunchest supporters, supplying advanced weapons and funds and training Ukrainian pilots on F-16s.
The Arctic is the second pressure point. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory, citing national security. The governments of Denmark and Greenland have rejected the idea. Speaking at the NATO summit in Ankara, Frederiksen stressed Denmark’s readiness to defend the alliance’s territory.
At the same 2024 announcement, Copenhagen said it would lift defence spending from 1.4 percent of GDP to 2 percent to meet NATO targets, with nearly $6 billion in extra money over five years. The armed forces also plan a drone unit within the Special Operations Command.
Sources
- Conscription in Denmark – Wikipedia
- Denmark expands conscription to women and extends service to 11 months | Межа
- Denmark to start conscripting women for military service
