Belgium's Defence Ministry has declared its new voluntary military service programme a success after receiving over 3,200 applications for just 500 available places. The one-year pilot scheme, launched in late 2025 following Belgium's decision to reintroduce military service on a voluntary basis — a concept abandoned across much of Europe in the 1990s — will now require a selection process among applicants, roughly one-fifth of whom are women. Analysts at Brussels' Royal Higher Institute for Defence attribute the surge in interest to heightened security awareness among younger generations in light of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, while polls now show nearly half of Belgian citizens would support a return to compulsory military service.