When German police officers have gone abroad to train colleagues in places such as Afghanistan or Kosovo, they've done so on a voluntary basis so far. In Germany, members of the federal police are charged with guarding borders -- the federal police emerged out of the former German Border Patrol -- patrolling trains, train stations and airports and protecting federal officials, among other things.

But that could change as officials at Germany's interior ministry, which oversees the country's federal police, propose to require officers to agree in principle to spend time abroad.

Duties like soldiers?

Voluntary members of Germany's military, the Bundeswehr, are already required to agree to missions abroad. Some 7,700 soldiers are currently deployed on foreign missions, with most of them stationed in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia and off the coast of Lebanon.

While the proposal is still in its early stages, members of Germany's parliament are scheduled to debate the issue on Thursday and supporters and opponents of the idea have already had their say.

"Anyone who starts working for the federal police has to do so knowing that a foreign mission can be part of their duties," Michael Hartmann, a Social Democrat and member of the parliament's interior affairs committee, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Hartmann added that he believes the new rule should be applied to new members of the force, rather than already existing ones.

Too much, too quickly?

Police union officials meanwhile rejected the idea outright, saying that the federal police with its 30,000 officers had already been charged with two many new things two quickly.

"We're vehemently against a duty to participate in foreign missions," Konrad Freiberg, the head of the German police union, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung.