Conscription in Greece

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Conscription Military service National service Conscription crisis Conscientious objection Conscription by country: Australia Germany Greece Israel Malaysia New Zealand Singapore Turkey United States

As of 2006, Greece (Hellenic Republic) has mandatory military service of 12 months for men between the ages of 19 and 45. Citizens discharged from active service are normally placed in the Reserve and are subject to periodic recall of 1-10 days at irregular intervals.

Contents 1 Duration 1.1 Reduced tour 1.2 Temporary Deferments 1.3 Permanent Deferment 1.4 Conscientious objectors 1.5 Draft evaders and citizens living abroad 2 Aspects of Military Life 2.1 Training 2.2 Duties 2.3 Accommodation 2.4 Leaves of Absence 3 Financial repercussions 4 Attitude towards conscription and conscripts (draftees) 5 Trivia 6 See also 7 External links

[edit] Duration

Universal conscription was introduced in Greece during the military reforms of 1909, although various forms of selective draft had been in place earlier. In more recent years, conscription was associated with the state of general mobilisation declared on July 20, 1974 due to the crisis in Cyprus (the mobilisation was formally ended on December 18, 2002).

The length of a tour has varied historically, between 12-36 months depending on various factors particular to the conscript, and the political situation. Although women are accepted into the Greek army on a voluntary basis, they are not required to enlist, as men are. Soldiers receive no health insurance, but they are provided medical support during their army service, including hospitalization costs.

As of 2006, Greece has mandatory military service of 12 months for men between the ages of 19 and 45. However, as the Armed forces had been gearing towards a complete professional army system, the government had promised that the mandatory military service would be cut to 6 months by 2008 or even abolished completely. However, this timetable is under reconsideration as of April 2006, due to severe manpower shortages. These were caused by a combination of (a) financial difficulties, which meant that professional soldiers could not be hired at the projected rate, and (b) widespread use of the deferement process, which meant that 66% of the draftees deferred service in 2005.

Greek males between the age of 18 and 60 who live in strategically sensitive areas may be required to serve part-time in the National Guard (Ethnofylaki Greek: Εθνοφυλακή). Service in the Guard is paid.

In 1998, the Greek Parliament voted law 2641 which mandated enrollment of Greek men and women between 18 and 60 years of age into a Civil Defence Organisation (Palaiki Amina Greek: Παλλαϊκή Άμυνα, ΠΑΜ). It was envisaged that the Civil Defence Organisation would respond to enemy action, natural disasters and all sorts of emergencies, but the law was never enforced.

[edit] Reduced tour

Currently, the length of a tour is 12 months, but conscripts may serve a reduced tour for various social or other reasons. Some common categories of conscripts serving reduced tours are:

• Citizens who have been living constantly abroad since their eleventh birthday and whose parents are not employed by the Greek state are required to serve six months.
• Citizens who moved to Greece before their eleventh birthday from countries of the former Eastern Block or Turkey. These consripts are required to serve three months.
• Scientists involved in outstanding research may serve three to six months, but are required to buy off the remaining duration of the normal tour at 293,47 Euros per month not served. These conscripts may fulfill their military obligations in disjointed tours of two months.
• Members of large families (over three children) may serve between six and nine months. In most cases this applies only to the oldest brothers.
• Fathers or citizens whose income is required to support elderly parents usually serve a nine month tour.
• Citizens whose father above the age of 70 serve a nine month tour, though this usually applies to the oldest brother only.
• Citizens whose father has died serve a nine month tour, though this usually applies to the oldest brother only.

[edit] Temporary Deferments

All healthy males are required to enlist at the age of 18. However, deferments are granted upon request to students who wish to attend higher or further education. The duration of the deferment is 5-6 years, subject to recall if a student fails to make any academic progress within a year. However, this provision is not enforced. Deferments can also be granted for reasons of health (including rehabilitation from drug abuse), and range in duration from 6 months to 2 years. These are awarded by medical committees comprising military physicians, army officers and recruitment officials. Incarcerated criminals are automatically deferred. Citizens whose brothers are currently serving in the armed forces may have their tour deferred until the discharge of their brothers. A deferment is also granted to candidates in most eletoral contests for the duration of the elections. Finally, a small number of deferments can be granted at the discretion of the Defence Minister for compelling social reasons not explicitly stated in the legislation.

[edit] Permanent Deferment

The following categories of citizens are not required to serve in the armed forces of Greece:

• People with serious health problems, including the mentally ill;
• Fathers of more than three children;
• The eldest brother in a family, whose members cannot support themselves;
• Fathers whose wife has died or is incapable of work and whose children cannot support themselves;
• Foreigners living in the monastic community of Mount Athos.

[edit] Conscientious objectors

In 1997, the Greek parliament voted a law that established alternative and unarmed service for conscientious objectors and in 2001, amended the Constitution to recognise the right to conscientious objection. As of 2004, alternative service is twice as long as the military service minus a month, i.e. 23 months, and unarmed service is 1.5 times as long as the military service, i.e. 18 months. Men serving alternative service at an institution that cannot provide them with food and shelter are paid about 210 euros per month.

[edit] Draft evaders and citizens living abroad

Draft evaders living in Greece are not allowed to leave the country and cannot be issued with a passport. Until 2002, the passports of draft evaders living outside Greece were not renewed after the expiration of the original. Upon re-entering Greece, these people were generally forced to conscribe. However in 2002, the right was granted to all Greek citizens to be issued passports, regardless of their draft status. In 2004, parliament granted partial amnesty to draft evaders, allowing them to visit Greece for up to 30 days in a single calendar year.

Greek military law allows Permanent Residents Abroad to defer military service till repatriation to Greece. Until 2005, the law only granted Permanent Residents Abroad status (for draft purposes) to persons who were born abroad or who moved abroad before the age of eleven and to those who had immigrated to a specific set of countries before 1997. This definition excluded many thousands of citizens who were living abroad and who were branded as 'draft evaders' by the authorities. The law was amended at the end of 2005 to grant Permanent Resident Abroad status to persons who have lived abroad for at least eleven years, or have worked abroad for at least seven years.

[edit] Aspects of Military Life

[edit] Training

Military training in the Hellenic Army consists of three cycles. The first cycle includes Basic (lasting 6 weeks) and Specialist Training (lasting 3-7 weeks). Basic and Specialist training take place in dedicated training facilities. The second training cycle is conducted in combat units, and lasts for 6 months. The third phase of training comprises the remainder of a conscript's tour and also carried out in regular army units.

According to current standing orders, conscripts are required to train for a total of 7 1/2 hours daily. However, a large number of conscripts are excused from training as they are on secondment to other assignments such as security or clerical and menial work. Moreover, many training activities tend to be theoretical in nature, and few opportunities are provided for the conscripts to practice the skills they are taught. As a result, the level of effectiveness of the training, particularly during the second and third cycles, is debatable.

[edit] Duties

Apart from their military training, draftees also have other duties such as cleaning toilets, making food, serving other draftees in the military restaurants, et cetera.

[edit] Accommodation

Draftees live in barracks and often have no access to electricity.

[edit] Leaves of Absence

During their tour, conscripts are entitled to a total of 18 days leave of absence. Farmers and students serving in the armed forces may be excused from their duties for an additional 18 days (maximum). Parents are entitled to extra five days of leave per child. Up to ten days of leave can be awarded for outstanding performance, at the commading officer's discretion. Conscripts may be awarded leave for health reasons, performing hazardous duties, NGO work or other reasons. In addition, it is current practice to award two days of leave per month of service in front-line units, although there is no explicit provision for this in the conscription law. In practice, all these breaks are usually taken in small blocks rather than long holidays.

Ηοwever the total duration of leaves can be expanded with various methods. First there are so called "Honorary Leaves" which are rewarded to draftees for perfoming certain dificult tasks, as rewards for excellence in training or for such simple reasons as having good relations with his superiors as favours.

There is also another practice called "unwritten leaves", these are leaves who carry normal leave papers but the superiors do not write down on the draftee's official record, again as a favour.

All those practices result in a draftee's total days of leave extending far more than the officially allowed 18 days, reaching as much as 3 months in total of a year service or even more in exceptional cases.

[edit] Financial repercussions

Conscripts are unsalaried, but nominal financial aid is provided, ranging from approximately 9 euros per month to 600 euros, depending on the conscripts' rank and family status. This aid is not -technically- considered a salary: it is intended to help draftees with various unforeseen expenses, which are not normally covered by the military (i.e. expenses other than food, accommodation, clothing, and transport fees). However, it is generally considered insufficient to sustain a draftee serving his tour away from his home and most draftees depend on their parents or on savings for financial support during their tour.

In 2004, the Greek Parliament passed a law stating that men over the age of 35 would be allowed to buy off their military obligation after attending 45 days of basic training. Currently the amount required to do this is 8,505 euros. This price tag (810 euros for every month not served) is calculated based on the income of professional soldiers adjusted for taxes. However, it is disproportionate to the income of many Greeks^{[citation needed]}therefore raising questions as to whether this ability is just another implicit taxation measure. Critics of conscription in Greece also argue that the only people who would be able to buy off their tour are rich people, and not ordinary citizens.

[edit] Attitude towards conscription and conscripts (draftees)

The military has a strong part in Greek society and structure, and is generally regarded as one of the most trustworthy institutions of the country. The military partakes in parades of Greek national celebrations. In the beginning of televised broadcasts in the country, the army also owned a television channel for civilians. In June 2006, Greek newspapers stated that army activity replace the state whenever its mechanics are absent or unavailiable to help civilians. Military helicopters are often used to transport sick people from remote or rural areas of Greece, to regional hospitals or to hospitals located in Athens when the patient's situation is grave or the weather does not permit the use of a regular helicopter or ship. The helicopters are also used to extinguish forest and flash fires during the summertime, or in search and rescue missions, like the Helios Airways Flight 522, which crashed August 14th, 2005.

People seeking long-term employment in both the public and private sector are usually required to have no pending military obligations. Among more traditional sectors of society, such as those in the rural regions, national service has been historically perceived as a rite of passage. In part this attitude was caused by moralistic beliefs encapsulated in the proverb Women have birth, men have the army, meaning that both genders offer a service to their Greek motherland, women by giving birth and men by helping defend it. Furthermore, widespread popular suspicion was generated by the fact that many deferments were due to homosexuality or reasons of mental health. The combined effect of these attitudes was considerable prejudice against people who had not served in the army. Draft-dodgers were often frowned upon and deemed useless by society.

Mandatory military service is often justified on the grounds that the army is perceived as the "natural" way to go and as a final 'school' of socialization and maturing for young Greek men before their comeout to the real world. This mindset is still present in modern times, even though the average age of draftees is higher than in the past, where the conscriptees tended to be 18-20 years old. Nowadays, conscripts are commonly in their mid-twenties, and many have university-level education (some having travelled abroad for studies) prior to conscription. In past generations, the army would often be the first time a young adult would find himself on his own and away from home ; nowadays this has by and large been replaced by Higher Education studies.

[edit] Trivia

• The Greek Constitution (Article 4) states that all citizens have equal rights and obligations and that all citizens capable of bearing arms must contribute to the defense of the country as provided by law. Greek conscription law [1] though, only applies to male citizens.
• Non-Greek European Union citizens have the right of unlimited permanent residency and employment in Greece without the obligation of conscription.

[edit] See also

• Loafing and Camouflage (Loufa kai Parallaghi Λούφα και παραλλαγή) by movie director Nikos Perakis

[edit] External links

• Conscription Law (3421/05)
• Basic Training
• Greek advocacy website against conscription in Greece
• Greek Ministry of Defence: Special Topics: Conscription
• Greek Ministry of Defence: Official Conscription site
• Amnesty International: The continuous harassment of conscientious objectors
• Conscription Guide