Tens of thousands of young people across Belgium will begin, starting this Monday, to receive a very special invitation in the mail: to be encouraged to try, in 2026, if they like a military career or, at least, to register for a one-year voluntary military service. The Belgian government has already sent 149,000 letters to 17-year-old men and women in the country, encouraging them to take advantage of this “unique opportunity” to learn values such as discipline or teamwork as soon as they come of age. The 500 volunteers selected for next year will receive a salary of 2,000 euros net per month during their service, although the Ministry of Defense claims that the attraction of this new volunteer soldier goes beyond money.
“All 17-year-olds in the country are encouraged to join the armed forces in general and to participate in the voluntary military service of a particular year,” Defense Minister Theo Francken wrote in a message on X on Saturday showing photos of letters distributed by the Belgian postal service. The letters, which he said were sent last Friday, should begin arriving in young people’s mailboxes this week.
With the letter “it is about opening the minds of the military, telling young people that defense is an option, or rather an opportunity. The objective is also to make young people aware that the world has changed and that there is a threat weighing on our country. It is a social project”, defended the initiative Francken in an interview with Le Soir in mid-October.
149,000 brieven gingen gisteren op de post. All 17 years of the land were warmly welcomed for the defense of the people and for the military dienstjaar very strong in enterprises.
Let’s go! @BelgiumDefence pic.twitter.com/UaStbvIHuC
— Theo Francken (@FranckenTheo) November 8, 2025
“Dear young man, dear young man”, reads the title of a letter addressed to boys and girls who are about to become adults and who the Belgian government is trying to attract towards a military career in need of increasing their rank: according to the newspaper The Free In the spring, currently, the Defense manages to recruit around 2,800 soldiers per year, a figure barely sufficient to maintain the current 24,600 soldiers (plus 6,500 reservists) and well below what will be needed to reach the 40,000 soldiers that the Government has set itself as a goal by the end of the decade.
According to the bill approved in September to launch this initiative, the idea, inspired by the similar one launched in 2023 in the Netherlands and which has already also been launched in Germany, registrations, for young people between 18 and 25 years old, will open in January 2026, in view of the first draft of the new volunteer military starting from September of the same year. In the same month of November, “information sessions” will begin, both in person and online, in the various provinces of the country to answer questions from potential interested parties, who will also have to undergo medical tests.
The idea is to progressively increase the number of these volunteer soldiers: the 500 initial places for the first draft of 2026 will double to 1,000 in 2027, with the final goal of reaching 7,000 places in the long term. According to reports, the new recruits will receive an initial 10-week basic military training and then more specific training, to be able to be deployed in both naval, air and land forces.
In September, after the approval of the measure, the Minister of Defense underlined that the letter which now arrives in the mailboxes of young Belgians is “purely informative and does not imply any obligation”. Each young person can decide to ignore it or take an interest in the offer “at their own pace”. He also added that only once the contract is selected and signed will it be binding and will the signatory be granted military status.
The initiative of the government led by Flemish nationalist Bart de Wever – whose Defense Minister is a member of the Flemish N-VA – has been criticized in recent months by the opposition, which fears a militarization of society.
