Austrians go to polls in referendum over national service
Sunday 20 January 2013
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EmailAustrians voted today on whether to end conscription.
Currently the country's 35,000-strong military consists of 14,000 professionals, with the rest conscripts who serve for six months. It also has a 30,000-strong part-time militia.
The proposed changes would introduce a 8,500-strong professional army, a smaller militia of 9,300 and a cut in hardware.
But debates have focused less on the army as a fighting force and more on how the changes will affect community service and emergency relief.
Much of Austria's social sector has come to depend on conscientious objectors, who opt out of military service to serve for nine months as ambulance drivers, retirement home workers and in other jobs that poor pay makes hard to fill.
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