German defence minister 'wants to cut size of the army by a third'

Germany's defence minister favours shrinking its army by more than a third and suspending compulsory national service, government sources have said.

Germany, increasingly active in international military missions in recent years, is working on five different models for overhauling the armed forces, or Bundeswehr, to cut defence costs and modernise the military.

Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg favours a scheme that would see the size of the armed forces reduced to 163,500 from around 250,000 at present, according to the sources.

Nearly all troops would be professionals, with a small programme of about 7,500 short-term volunteers remaining in place of the 60,000 troops that now consist of men fulfilling a requirement to serve for six months.

Until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the Federal Republic shied away from participation in armed conflicts and foreign deployment of the army was limited to humanitarian aid.

However, in the past two decades German soldiers fought on foreign soil in international missions in troubled regions like Somalia, Kosovo, Congo and Afghanistan, where Germany now has the third-largest international contingent.

Today Germany has some 6,700 troops stationed abroad.