In an international climate stretched and marked by conflicts, we return to speak in Italy about military leverage. Although most of the citizens consider it a distant memory, abolished in 2005, the regulatory reality is different: mandatory military service was only suspended by law 23 August 2004, n. 226. It has never been eliminated by the legal system.
This detail is fundamental, since the reactivation of the lever would not require a complex legislative process from scratch, but the activation of mechanisms already envisaged. The Italian state maintains the principle expressed by article 52 of the Constitution: “The defense of the homeland is the sacred duty of the citizen. Military service is mandatory within the limits and ways established by law.”
For young people born in 2008, for example, the Municipality of Rome had published the list of registration on the lever list on 31 January 2025. This notice responds to the provisions of the current legislation on the lever lists.
The two conditions for the compulsory call
The recruitment on a mandatory basis cannot take place for free initiative, but is allowed exclusively to the occurrence of two tax hypotheses, defined by law no. 331 of 2000.
The fundamental prerequisite for the civil leverage
In both cases, the reactivation of the compulsory lever for civilians is not automatic. It is necessary that an additional competitor will use: the insufficiency of the staff in service and the impossibility of filling the holidays in the staff by means of the recall on the service of voluntary military personnel who has been ceased by the service for no more than five years.
This means that the call sequence, in case of mobilization, concerns:
Bodies such as firefighters, the prison police and the local police are exempt from the call on duty.
Who are the civilians subject to the call and the role of women
In the case, remote, in which the call of civilians were necessary, citizens would respond to the obligation between 18 and 45 years judged suitable by the medical commissions, selected according to the lever lists.
The health investigations would end with three possible results: full suitability (enrollment), review (temporary not suitability) or definitive reform (permanent exclusion). Pregnant women fall among the not obliged subjects to the lever.
Any call to weapons, as sanctioned by the Constitution, is not refused. Article 52 adds that the fulfillment of military service does not affect the citizen’s work position, nor the exercise of political rights.
The debate in Europe
The tendency to reintroduce or maintain the lever is alive in different European countries, often as a response to the evolution of the geopolitical scenario. Currently, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Austria, Switzerland and Türkiye have mandatory leverage. Others, such as Denmark and Lithuania, opt for the draw, while Norway and Sweden proceed by selection.
