From the beginning of May, the Austrian Armed Forces will deploy around 3,000 militia soldiers to deal with the coronavirus crisis. This was announced at a joint press conference by Defense Minister Klaudia Tanner, Chief of the General Staff Robert Brieger and Militia Commissioner Major General Erwin Hameseder.
Minister Tanner addressed the public, the militia soldiers and the business community with three messages:
- According to the planned target level, the armed forces will call up around 10 percent of the militia soldiers.
- The call-up orders will be delivered in April and the soldiers will begin their service on May 4.
- Only individual Jäger companies from all over Austria are called up, but not entire battalions.
Unnecessary personnel will not be called up, says Tanner: “The aim is definitely not to remove systemically important employees of critical infrastructures from their civilian function.” “It will be clear by April 10 at the latest which units will be deployed. So there is enough time for the militia soldiers, but also for the companies, to prepare themselves organizationally,” assured Major General Erwin Hameseder, the Federal Armed Forces’ militia officer. General Robert Brieger: “In mid-May, the militia forces will then complete their discharge and be available for a period of around three months.” Most of the missions planned for the militia soldiers are
security police tasks to support the executive. The soldiers will first undergo two weeks of refresher training in which basic skills are repeated. They will then take over from the professional soldiers and conscripts who have been called up by then. There are currently 631 soldiers on a coronavirus assistance mission and 678 are primarily supporting food retailers. The coronavirus mission has a particularly diverse range of tasks:
- In Tyrol, the army provides support with travel management and fever measurement.
- In Carinthia, soldiers also help with travel management.
- In Salzburg, a company from Jäger Battalion 18 has taken on security police duties. A military doctor joins the medical team at Salzburg Hospital.
- In Styria, soldiers support the health authorities at the border crossings and the operations of the Graz Clinic.
- Other army personnel support the hotlines of the Foreign Ministry, AGES and the Vorarlberg State Warning Center.
- Around 500 men and women help the supermarket chains to supply the population with food.
- Since last week, military police have been guarding foreign embassies in Vienna in order to relieve the burden on the police.
Minister Klaudia Tanner: “These many examples show once again that our army can be deployed in crises.”
