While European Union countries spend the summer months battling massive wildfires, reductions in firefighting budgets are drawing fierce criticism.

According to a report by EUobserver, firefighters have grown tired of being branded “heroes” by politicians.

“We don’t want to be called heroes; we want to be given resources,” said Ludovic Goblet, a representative of the French firefighters’ union Spasdis-CFTC.

His remarks came days after fresh EU figures revealed that the number of professional firefighters across Europe fell by 18,000 during the worst wildfire year on record.

That decline included a reduction of more than 4,000 personnel in France alone.

French firefighters set out three urgent demands

A coalition of trade unions representing France’s fire and rescue services held a meeting lasting approximately two hours with Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez last Thursday.

The coalition put forward three primary demands: additional resources to cope with the surge in emergency calls, the mass recruitment of professional firefighters, and new legislation to modernise civil protection services.

“The minister failed to meet our expectations; we received no concrete response. We have no guarantees regarding funding, funding strategy, or the content of the legislation,” said union spokesperson Xavier Boy.

Boy noted that the resources allocated to fire services have not kept pace with the rising number of interventions and multiplying crises.

Lack of resources fuels strike call for September

Unions have called for a “major mobilisation” on 29 September, a day when public sector workers are also planning to strike.

David Saquet of the UNSA firefighters’ union told AFP that professional firefighters also plan to stage a protest at Place de la Republique in Paris three days earlier.

Firefighters say they are exhausted following one of the worst wildfire seasons in French history, with provisional estimates indicating that at least 120,000 hectares have burned since the beginning of the summer.

Of the 256,400 firefighters registered with the French Interior Ministry, only 44,000—or approximately 17%—are either professional or military personnel.

In recent weeks, applications to become volunteer firefighters have doubled, and in some departments tripled.

Fire officials report that, driven in part by a wave of public gratitude, they have had to process as many applications in a few weeks as they typically receive in six months.

French interior minister plays for time

Nuñez said on Thursday that long-awaited draft legislation to reorganize the country’s civil protection services would be presented on 8 September.

Launched in mid-2024, the initiative aimed to modernise a system widely seen as on the verge of collapse by providing additional financial support. However, the process had ground to a halt since then.

The interior minister welcomed the “very frank discussions” held with unions on Thursday.

The minister stated that the proposal to be presented in September would “more clearly define the missions” of French firefighters, who “currently have to respond to personal medical emergencies just as frequently as they respond to disasters or fires.”

In a statement published on the social media platform X, Nuñez added that discussions regarding the funding of fire services remain ongoing, with additional resources expected to be allocated in the 2027 budget.

European Commission enforces fiscal austerity

Ahead of this summer, the European Commission told member states that they needed to ensure they maintained an “adequately sized and well-prepared” firefighting force.

Yet the Commission is simultaneously enforcing the EU’s strict fiscal rules, which have led to spending cuts in public services, including fire departments.

Poland, for example, recorded the largest drop in firefighter numbers last year. Alongside France, it was placed under the Excessive Deficit Procedure in 2024.

Belgium faces a similar situation: the country’s fire services are tackling wildfires with a 10% reduction in staffing in 2024 and a further loss of 200 firefighters in 2025.

This development is not only hazardous for the public and firefighters. Damage caused by wildfires this summer has already exceeded 3 billion euros.

Conversely, the same fiscal logic is not applied to defence, where massive investments are being channelled into military equipment.

According to EUobserver, in the face of mounting and increasingly complex threats, austerity policies have left Europe weaker, more divided, and less prepared in almost every respect for the challenges ahead.

The latest dangerous escalation in relations between the United Kingdom and Russia is raising concerns that the two countries are on the brink of war.

The United Kingdom has begun supplying Ukraine with long-range uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) and has authorised their use in strikes against targets deep inside Russia.

Kyiv is deploying these uncrewed aircraft specifically to strike Russian oil refineries.

In response, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that Moscow would consider this as UK intervention in the war.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham travelled to the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, by overnight train on his first foreign visit. Attending the country’s independence day celebrations, Burnham handed over classified defence plans that pave the way for the production of long-range missiles in Ukraine.

In late 2024, the United Kingdom for the first time granted Ukraine permission to use British Storm Shadow cruise missiles to strike targets in the Russian heartland.

At that time, a Storm Shadow strike against the Kursk region was initially confirmed.

As The Sunday Times recently confirmed, London gave the green light to this decision in full knowledge that Moscow would regard Kyiv’s use of long-range Western weapons as crossing one of its “red lines”.

However, the availability of the Storm Shadow was considered limited, particularly due to its unit cost of over 750,000 British pounds. Furthermore, the cruise missile has a range of only about 250 kilometres.

This year, the United Kingdom took a step further and also began supplying Ukraine with long-range uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs).

These are now being used not only in strikes against the Donbas and Crimea, but also against regions deep inside Russia.

The Nyan model UAV, produced by BAE Systems subsidiary Callen-Lenz, was used in strikes against targets near Belgorod.

Another was used in attacks on oil refineries in Volgograd and Yaroslavl, located approximately 340 and 700 kilometres from the border, respectively. This model and its manufacturer have so far been kept secret.

In April, the British government announced that it would supply Ukraine with approximately 120,000 uncrewed aerial vehicles manufactured in the United Kingdom throughout 2026. How many of these are long-range weapons is unknown.

Russia could henceforth declare the factories where these weapons are manufactured to be “legitimate targets”. Indeed, the Russian government had already done so in April. At that time, Moscow stated that the production and delivery of long-range weapons would “gradually turn the countries concerned into Ukraine’s strategic rear”. Consequently, these countries would be “dragged into a war with Russia”.

One of the Kremlin’s responses was to recall its ambassador to the United Kingdom. Andrei Kelin, who served as Russia’s ambassador to the United Kingdom for more than seven years, left his diplomatic post on 21 July.

Moscow has not submitted any candidate to the Foreign Office to replace him, and embassy staff reportedly have no knowledge of when a successor will be appointed.

According to The Times, there are concerns that the absence of a replacement has effectively downgraded diplomatic relations between the two countries, prompting fears of a complete breakdown in communication between Moscow and London.

A Russian Embassy spokesperson stated that Kelin had made “significant efforts to preserve relations and communication channels” with the United Kingdom, accusing the London government of choosing the “path of confrontation” with Russia.

The spokesperson continued:

“He left Britain in the hope that if the United Kingdom reassesses its policies toward our country, a more constructive and respectful dialogue could ultimately be restored. In the meantime, a chargé d’affaires has assumed leadership of the embassy.”

On Sunday, the embassy in London maintained that the Kremlin had no intention of “downgrading the level of diplomatic relations between the two countries”, arguing that “the state of Russia-UK relations in all spheres has fallen to an unprecedented low entirely on London’s initiative”.

Kelin’s departure was announced internally a month earlier, on 11 June, during a party held at the embassy to celebrate Russia Day.

On the same day in Moscow, British Ambassador Nigel Casey, together with French and German representatives, held a rare meeting with the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister to “condemn the Kremlin’s aggression in Ukraine”.

A defence source speaking to The Times stated that no secret backchannels had been established between military representatives.

A senior diplomatic source said the severing of dialogue was extremely worrying:

“It is particularly important to maintain these channels of communication between hostile states. Communication and de-escalation are the only way to prevent potentially dangerous scenarios from turning into catastrophe.”

A national security source warned that the move could be a deliberate signal from Moscow after Britain’s leading role in supporting Ukraine provoked fury in the Kremlin.

“They are essentially saying ‘you don’t matter’, and frankly London and the UK no longer mean anything,” the source said.

John Foreman, the former British military attaché in Moscow, said that a gap between ambassadors was not unprecedented, but added:

“However, the embassy’s sharp statement this week and the major deterioration in bilateral relations since 2019, especially since the start of the war in Ukraine, make me wonder whether they will permanently degrade the quality of relations this time.”

The German government is also supporting the production of long-range uncrewed aerial vehicles in Germany and their delivery to Ukraine to enable strikes deep into Russian territory. It remains unclear whether such deliveries have already taken place.

German companies have not only begun producing uncrewed aerial vehicles for the Ukrainian armed forces at German facilities in cooperation with Ukrainian firms; they also argue that these vehicles are safe from Russian attacks within Germany’s borders.

Furthermore, German-American startup Auterion and Ukrainian uncrewed aerial vehicle manufacturer Airlogix are launching a joint venture to produce long-range uncrewed aerial vehicles at a facility near Munich.

A second factory will be built in eastern Germany. This is taking place at the explicit request of the government.

Defence Minister Boris Pistorius announced in September 2025 that Berlin would intensify its “support for Ukraine’s procurement of long-range uncrewed aerial vehicles”. Approximately 300 million euros will reportedly be allocated for this purpose.

Regarding the timeline, it was stated in April that the first shipment of long-range drones from the Munich area to Ukraine was planned to take place within several months. Whether this has occurred is not yet clear.

This question is of major importance; for if so, German-manufactured drones may have already struck targets in the Russian heartland. In that case, concerns will emerge that Germany has also become a party to the war.

The German Ministry of Defence has set a series of priority targets for the second half of the year. Led by Boris Pistorius (SPD), the ministerial leadership is satisfied with the government’s draft federal budget, which is scheduled for adoption by the Bundestag at the end of November.

According to a report by the newspaper Welt, the fundamental issue that officials do not openly voice in public is the necessity of converting resources allocated from tax revenues and loans into military capabilities as efficiently as possible, given that disruptions continue to occur in this area.

Regarding new infrastructure construction, the process is generally assessed to be proceeding as planned.

The objective this year is to add approximately 9,000 new bed spaces to barracks, with the initial allocations to these beds having begun in recent days.

Over the next four years, plans envisage incorporating roughly 54,000 additional beds into the system alongside new buildings.

Despite all these areas, personnel continues to be the single largest problem area in the armed forces.

In a statement issued at the beginning of the week, the ministry reported that the number of active-duty soldiers reached 186,700 as of 31 July, marking the highest level in approximately 13 years.

Although this figure falls considerably short of the ultimate target of 260,000 troops to be reached by 2035 at the latest, the ministry argues that the current figure lies “within the projected target corridor for personnel growth”.

This stems from an agreement initially reached with the Bundestag on a relatively slow trajectory of expansion. The planning in question projects an active strength of between 186,000 and 190,000 personnel by the end of the year.

The ministry projects that, “in line with general positive developments in the recruitment process, the Bundeswehr’s personnel growth will maintain its positive trajectory until the end of the year, despite the impact of seasonal fluctuations”.

However, not all observers share this assessment. In a post published on LinkedIn, the former Chief of the German Army, Lieutenant General Alfons Mais, made the following evaluations:

“Looking at these announcements, one could easily get the impression that the constitutional mission of the Bundeswehr is to employ as many people as possible. The key question is: Where does this additional strength, including personnel whose service has been extended, contribute to the defence mission? In administrative posts? In territorial defence? In the reserve elements of operational units? In closing existing personnel gaps in active units? In augmenting new capabilities aimed at NATO planning targets? In Lithuania?”

Pointing out that the issue is not merely one of quantity but of quality—namely deploying the right personnel in the right places—Mais indicates that personnel must not be stationed solely in headquarters, but in artillery battalions, naval surface units, fighter aircraft squadrons, or the electronic warfare domain.

Indeed, the ministry is also aware of the structural problems highlighted by the retired lieutenant general.

Even as politically desired record figures are made public, officials in the Bendlerblock acknowledge that the Bundeswehr’s personnel structure must be returned to a pyramid form to adopt a defence posture suitable for potential crises and wartime situations.

In ministry corridors, there is talk that the military in its current structure has “accumulated too much fat” and that its administrative middle has grown cumbersome.

In the pyramid model considered ideal for the armed forces, generals and staff officers form the apex, while junior enlisted personnel and privates constitute the broad base; officers and non-commissioned officers occupy the space between these two tiers.

A large base combined with a small number of command positions guarantees both a young and physically resilient force and the steady advancement of the most capable personnel to higher ranks through continuous selection.

This model also provides cost efficiency and delivers high mobilisation capacity through personnel who transition into the reserves upon completing their service.

Today, however, the Bundeswehr possesses not only a bloated upper echelon but also a disproportionately broad middle tier, resulting in a cumbersome institutional torso.

The ranks of young enlisted personnel remain insufficient, while older officers are present in surplus. A major who lacks sufficient troops to command produces no military added value; moreover, the prolonged retention of senior personnel prevents the promotion of younger soldiers.

Consequently, defence expenditures are absorbed by high salaries for mid- and senior-level staff rather than being channelled into combat strength, equipment, or the next generation of personnel.

Despite the ministry’s recognition of this dynamic, no concrete transformative steps have yet been taken in practice.

An ageing force with no gain in deterrence

To sustain positive personnel statistics alongside new recruitment, the Pistorius leadership is resorting to “retention measures” aimed at keeping contract and regular personnel in the armed forces beyond the conclusion of their service terms.

Since April, the minister has been sending personalised letters to non-commissioned officers and officers.

Opening with an expression of gratitude for their service, the letters state:

“Your final days in active service coincide with a period of profound upheaval. Our country and our continent face immense challenges. In this process, the Bundeswehr’s mission is becoming even more critical. Personnel growth is therefore our primary focus. This growth can only be achieved with qualified, high-performing, and above all dedicated soldiers—experienced comrades like you. Let us look at your professional future together. Your contribution matters every single day.”

The ministry defends these and similar retention measures solely on the basis of quantitative targets. According to its statement, “targeted individual advisory measures” conducted in 2025 alone prompted thousands of service members across all statuses and branches to extend their terms of service.

Yet this method resonates primarily among older regular personnel. As of the end of July 2026, the strength of regular and contract soldiers rose by approximately 3,000 compared to the previous year, reaching 174,700.

The primary driver of this increase was the rise in regular soldiers, whereas contract personnel numbers recorded a slight decline.

Although 56-year-old regular soldiers whose physical performance may be limited remain necessary due to specialised expertise, this sweeping policy slows the effort to reshape the personnel structure into a pyramid.

As the armed forces age in practice, debate continues over whether this approach converts the military into a more effective and hard-hitting force.

The ministry is also hesitant to publicly disclose the true scale of the personnel shortfall. The gap is not merely the 73,300 soldiers separating the current strength of 186,700 from the 260,000 target.

Regular personnel briefings omit the number of departures from the armed forces—namely the actual requirement for replenishment and replacement.

Over the past three years, an average of 14,000 regular and contract soldiers departed the Bundeswehr annually. According to the ministry’s response to an information request, this figure stood at roughly 14,600 in 2025, with similar numbers expected this year. Conscripts completing their term of service add to these totals.

A ministry spokesperson stated that they could not provide a five-year projection because the data fluctuates continuously and remains highly volatile. However, such an estimate is not difficult to deduce.

Following the suspension of compulsory military service in 2011, then-Defence Minister Thomas de Maiziere (CDU) began tying contract soldiers to extended service terms of 20 to 25 years under the “Personnel Structure Model 185”.

As the service terms of these personnel expire in the coming years, replacement requirements will rise substantially.

Experienced personnel planners agree that approximately 30,000 new recruits must enter the armed forces annually in the future to achieve the targeted growth.

Current figures fall far short of this requirement. The annual net personnel gain stands at only around 3,700 compared to the previous year; furthermore, this expansion risks being eroded by regular attrition rates exceeding 20%. The implementation of the new military service model is also failing to progress at the intended pace.

By the end of July, a total of 378,000 letters were dispatched under the military service questionnaire initiative, including roughly 194,000 to young men and approximately 184,000 to young women.

Roughly 96% of the men, for whom completing the questionnaire was mandatory, fulfilled their obligation. Among women, for whom participation was voluntary, the response rate remained at 4%.

Approximately 2,630 individuals who expressed interest underwent evaluation; following this process, 865 individuals were scheduled for deployment within the Bundeswehr.

This situation underpins retired Lieutenant General Mais’s scepticism toward the defence leadership’s personnel bulletins.

Mais underscored the gravity of the situation: “One cannot conceal qualitative deficits simply by cheering marginal numerical gains!”