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Vietnam editionThe Left Party, the Greens and the SPD have concluded their exploratory talks in Berlin after four weeks; Tagesschau published the item on Saturday at 17:31 under the headline “Breakthrough.” Die Zeit had reported the agreement at 12:29 (UTC) with the word “apparently,” and a Die Zeit item at 15:13 calls the exploratory talks over. According to Die Zeit, the three parties plan the socialization of housing. The election to the House of Representatives was four weeks ago. Friedrich Merz warned the SPD and the Greens against talks with the Left Party the same day at the Deutschlandtag of the Junge Union (Die Zeit, Handelsblatt). A coalition agreement, a timetable for negotiations and the distribution of ministries are not mentioned in the reports.
For the capital, the question is who will determine rents, construction and the budget in the coming years. Tenants, landlords and housing companies are affected, for whom socialization would take away or provide planning certainty.
If you rent or let in Berlin, you should now wait for the wording of a coalition agreement and not make hasty decisions. It helps to read communications from the tenants’ association and the Senate department with a purpose.
A breakthrough in exploratory talks is a start, not a destination. What matters is whether the word “socialization” becomes a law that stands up in court.
Tagesschau, Die Zeit, Google News
Left Party, Greens and SPD announce breakthrough in exploratory talks in Berlin
Four weeks after the election to the House of Representatives, the exploratory talks among the red-green-red parties are over; a coalition agreement, though, is not yet in hand.
Four weeks after the election to the Berlin House of Representatives, the Left Party, the Greens and the SPD have concluded their exploratory talks and announced a breakthrough. That is what Tagesschau and Die Zeit report; a search on Google News also shows the item from Saturday afternoon. Die Zeit had already reported an agreement at midday, using the word “apparently”, and Tagesschau published its item in the late afternoon. The capital may thus be facing a three-party alliance, which in this constellation is called red-green-red.
So far, one point above all is known on substance: according to Die Zeit, the three parties plan the socialization of housing in Berlin. How far it is meant to go, which holdings would be affected and by what procedure it could proceed is not apparent from the reports at hand. The topic is politically charged because it affects tenants, landlords and investors alike and has been debated in the city for years. Exploratory talks are a preliminary conversation in which parties sound out whether negotiations make sense at all; they are not binding.
At the same time, pressure from outside is growing. On Saturday, at the Deutschlandtag of the Junge Union, Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz explicitly warned the SPD and the Greens against talks with the Left Party. “Stop going down this path,” he said, according to Die Zeit and Handelsblatt. The Left Party itself is under pressure in the debate: party leader Schwerdtner rejected accusations of antisemitism at a party conference, with which the party has been confronted for weeks, according to Die Zeit and Handelsblatt.
What comes next is foreseeable but not decided. The exploratory talks would have to be followed by coalition negotiations, in which ministries, finances and legislative projects are settled; after that, party bodies or members usually vote their approval before the House of Representatives elects a Governing Mayor. The reports contain neither a timetable nor any statement on who would govern the city. It is also open how the SPD and the Greens will deal with the warning from the Chancellery and the CDU. For Berliners, the state of rents and housing policy therefore remains the most important test for now.
The timing is politically notable: the breakthrough becomes known on the same day on which the Federal Chancellor warns against exactly this cooperation, and the reports set the two events side by side. For national politics, this gives Berlin a signalling effect, because the SPD and the Greens would have to show how far they are willing to engage with the Left Party, while the Union stresses its distance. Whether the Berlin state branches withstand the pressure cannot be read from the reports.