Serbia will end conscription to the military from Jan 1 next year, the government said on Thursday, a decade after the fall of President Slobodan Milosevic and wars that tore apart former Yugoslavia, according to Reuters. The move is part of a 2004 strategy aimed at the gradual introduction of a professional army capable of tackling insurgencies and peacekeeping missions abroad. Under the plan, which also requires approval by the 250-seat parliament, the Serbian military will be trimmed from 43,000 to 30,000 professional troops, the statement said. "We want an army which will be better paid, highly motivated and superbly equipped along NATO standards. Professionals are an answer," a high-ranking officer said on condition of anonymity. Serbia's budget accounts for 2.1 percent of GDP, but about 30 percent is annually spent on pensions for former servicemen. The Serbian army is a vestige of the communist Yugoslav People's Army that fought wars in Slovenia and Croatia in 1991 and Bosnia in 1992. Under Milosevic, it actively supported ethnic Serb forces there. In 1999, the army of the Yugoslav federation comprising Serbia and Montenegro fought alongside Serb police against ethnic Albanian guerrillas in Kosovo. The Kosovo war ended with NATO bombing in 1999 that crippled the Yugoslav air force and destroyed most infrastructure. Several top Serb commanders were tried and sentenced by the United Nations war crimes court in The Hague, Netherlands for atrocities committed during the Balkan wars. Following Milosevic's ouster in 2000, the new Serbian authorities sought to mend ties with NATO. Although the country joined its Partnership for Peace program, it is not considering full membership in the bloc. Under provisions of its constitution, Serbia follows the doctrine of military neutrality, but it participates in four United Nations-led peacekeeping missions. It has no troops in NATO contingents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
