On Saturday, the Polish army invites young and old to "military picnics" in more than 30 cities across the country.

What a picnic looks like from the pre-Corona period is remembered: military equipment is on display, children are allowed to climb on tanks, information stands explain the meaning and purpose of national defense.

Of course, the traditional Polish soldiers' dish has also been announced for this Saturday: Pea stew will be served from a "cannon".

This time, however, the picnics have a special goal: They open a campaign with which the country's armed forces are to double their personnel strength to around 300,000 in the long term.

Gerhard Gnauck

Political correspondent for Poland, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania based in Warsaw.

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For this purpose, a "voluntary military service" is introduced, which should last one year.

The abolition of conscription was announced in August 2008;

the then liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced the decision five days before the outbreak of the Russo-Georgian war.

The conservative then President Lech Kaczyński, the twin brother of the head of the current ruling party PiS, signed the corresponding law in 2009.

At that time, the western world was hoping for a “reset”, a new start in relations with Russia.

Against "Russia's Imperial Ambitions"

Now the situation is different.

Last October, PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczyński warned of "Russia's imperial ambitions" and announced a draft law "on defense of the fatherland" to strengthen the army.

At that time, Poland was still under the impression of the migration crisis on its eastern border: the Belarusian authorities had organized the transport of thousands of people from many countries in Asia and Africa to the EU's eastern borders.

Poland responded by deploying border guards and soldiers and building a "barrier" more than five meters high along the border.

The construction work is still ongoing.

The law, which was passed almost unanimously by both chambers of parliament in March and came into force in April, stipulates that new conscripts cannot be fired by their civilian employer during the period of their service.

The new soldiers are to receive four-week basic training and then take their oath.

Then follows the special training in a unit, whereby local and other wishes should be largely taken into account.

The army offers training from cook to truck driver to paratrooper.

The salary should roughly correspond to that of a career soldier when they start their service, i.e. roughly 1,000 euros gross.

Anyone who has completed this year can easily become a career soldier;

he is also given preference when applying for employment in the public sector and can add the length of service to his total employment time.

Warsaw announces three percent target

The aim is to increase the regular army from the current 110,000 to 250,000 and the homeland territorial defense force from 32,000 to 50,000.

In addition, according to Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak, defense spending should increase from 2.2 to three percent of gross domestic product as early as 2023.

This should primarily benefit the modernization of the equipment, for which new financing instruments have also been designed.

Since the start of Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014, and especially this year, fears of war have increased.

According to Minister Blaszczak, around 400 people a week used to apply to the army; in the week after the outbreak of war on February 24, it was "more than 2,200".

Experts like General Miroslaw Rózański of the Stratpoints Foundation, who was the country's top military officer until 2016, are skeptical about some things about the law.

It is not financially possible to increase personnel and armament at the same time in this way.

"Better would be 150,000 men with supermodern equipment."