Europe

The law says that the service is mandatory. You can join the military or alternatively do some civil service. The issue is, however, that the law only says that it's mandatory for males. Females are allowed to join the military if they want, but they don't have to. That law can be changed, but there's no political majority for it.

That means that if you're a young girl you can go to university, start working, do your apprenticeship, or do some work and travel in Australia and if you're a male you can be drafted to the military. So that kind of explains the demonstrations.

They're discussing changes to this since the Ukraine war began and these changes could be enacted within the next years. The young people currently demonstrating would be directly affected so it's understandable they go to the streets. If all parties needed for a majority agree on the relevant points, things can get moving pretty fast (see the decriminalization of Cannabis for the whole country or the adaption of the access rights of police to enable them to use Gotham in BW ...).

It's also worth to mention that the German military has issues with providing enough equipment for their recruits and there are scandals about abuse, racism and sexism on a regular base. The current government fails to address these issues in a proper and transparent manner but wants to force young people to join anyway.

The basic law dictates compulsory military service, but that has been suspended for a while now, because after the fall of the Soviet Union the need for that went down, the Bundeswehr was of little relevance.

The basic law also grants you the right to refuse the service for conscientious reasons (like not willing to kill, religion). Usually in those cases you‘d end up doing some substitute civilian service, anyway, if otherwise you‘d be fit for military service.

What‘s happening now is, that Germany is gearing up for war against Russia. Militarization is in full swing, money is funneled towards military spending, as well as infrastructure spending that benefits the military (west-east axis to transfer equipment and units), all while spending on social, cultural and educational sectors is being cut.

And with that the state has a renewed interest in human military stock that would be available, if that war actually happened.

So the suspension is cancelled and slowly, but surely, the younger generation will be compelled to join the compulsory military service. And you‘re right, for changes in the basic law, you would need a two thirds majority.

Now here comes the „conscientious reasons“ into play, because the threshold of what counts as such is defined through normal laws and these can be changed more easily (simple majority, I believe).

Basic law defines: „you can refuse for conscientious reasons“; normal law defines: „what actually is a conscientious reason in case of refusal“.

So the problem here is, that citizens are granted the right to refuse, but the state dictates the conditions on what counts and what not.

In practice the state will create the conditions to get the amount of people into the military, they think they need. Against the will of the individual, if need be.

I'm not sure if there's a "military or public service" decision this time, but when I had to go these were the options. Learn how to hold a weapon or learn how to wash old people (or drive an ambulance, help at an orphanage, etc).

It sucks, as you're drafted at ~18 years and slightly above, but it's not the end of the world.

There was also a law like that in Ukraine. And look how fast that can go away.