Expropriation bang in Berlin! Referendum on rental madness is successful

September 26th was a great day for Berlin's citizens not only because of the federal election: it was also about the referendum on the expropriation of real estate companies.

• In addition to the Bundestag election and the Berlin election, a referendum is also used.

  It is about the housing situation in the capital and a powerful real estate company

  (see initial report).

• Berlin residents will be asked several times at the ballot box on Sunday (September 26th)

  (see update from September 26th, 1.30 p.m.).

• The referendum was a success.

  The majority of Berliners eligible to vote voted for the expropriation of real estate

  giants (see update from September 27, 8:35 a.m.)

  .

• This news ticker is continuously updated.

Update from September 27th, 8:35 am:

The count in the referendum "

Expropriate

Deutsche Wohnen & Co" in Berlin is complete.

The referendum was successful.

At 8:19 a.m., all 3,763 areas were counted.

56.4 percent of Berliners eligible to vote voted in favor of the socialization of companies that own more than 3,000 apartments.

39.0 percent were against it.

This was announced by the state election management on Monday morning.

Expropriation bang in Berlin!

According to the extrapolation, referendum on rental madness has been successful

Update from September 27, 12:15 a.m.:

The majority of Berliners are in favor of the referendum on the expropriation of real estate companies.

The initiative “expropriate Deutsche Wohnen und Co” seems to be a success.

The

Tagesspiegel

reports that, according to the first extrapolation, 57 percent of the electorate voted for the socialization of companies that own more than 3,000 apartments.

About 38 percent

voted against.

However, only about 20 percent of the electoral districts have been counted. 

Update from September 26, 3:44 p.m.:

Voting is apparently not made particularly easy for some Berliners.

Due to the marathon, the ballot papers run out in various polling stations, the sporting event also causes supply problems.

The district office in Mitte has already called for people to go to the polling station as soon as possible, as there could be a two-hour waiting time on site.

Berlin: referendum on the day of the federal election - marathon event causes problems

Update from September 26th, 1.30 p.m.:

There is a lot going on in Berlin today: Bundestag elections, election of the House of Representatives and voting on the referendum.

In addition, a marathon, about which there was already some frustration among some voters.

In the referendum, the Berliners vote on whether large housing groups with more than 3,000 apartments should be expropriated.

From the governing parties, only the left is aggressively supporting the project.

According to the state election control, there have never been so many votes in one day in Berlin.

Update from September 26, 11:10 a.m.:

The polling stations have been open for a few hours.

Will Berlin's citizens agree to the referendum?

You can vote on it until 6 p.m.

Berlin: rents doubled in ten years - expropriation of housing corporations?

First report from September 26th, 10:23 am:

Berlin - On September 26th, there will be four votes in Berlin: to the federal election *, election in the House of Representatives and the district council meetings, there is also the referendum "Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co.".

The latter choice is about the question of how affordable housing can be secured in the capital.

The answer of the expropriation initiative is: through "socialization".

The point is to slow down a development that has already taken place in an extreme way in cities like Munich by referendum: Initiators want to transfer 240,000 residential units of large real estate groups in Berlin to an institution under public law. There they should be subordinated to an administration that acts “democratically, transparently and in a way that is oriented towards the common good”. According to the initiative's plans, all “private, profit-oriented real estate companies” that own more than 3000 apartments in the capital would be affected, including the housing giants Vonovia, their coveted property Deutsche Wohnen or Akelius.

The citizens' initiative invokes Article 15 of the Basic Law, according to which land can be transferred to common property for the purpose of socialization. The state would have to provide financial compensation for the expropriation of the housing associations. Opinions are divided about this: the initiative expects costs totaling up to 13.7 billion euros, while the Berlin Senate estimates these to be between 29 and 39 billion euros.

The drastic step is intended to stop a further increase in rents in Berlin. According to an analysis by the online portal

Immowelt,

these have increased

by 42 percent since 2016 - in no other of the 35 German cities examined was the increase as great. Over the past ten years, rental prices have even doubled. The initiative "Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co." wants to end this "rent madness". The petition for citizens receives broad support in the form of signatures:

Berlin's red-red-green government coalition * tried this beforehand with the so-called rent cap.

A first part of the cover came into force in February 2020 and retrospectively froze rents for almost one and a half million apartments for five years.

A second part obliged landlords from the end of 2020 to lower rents that exceeded a statutory upper limit by more than 20 percent.

Berlin and the sharply rising rents: referendum on expropriation on September 26th.

However, the Federal Constitutional Court tipped the rent cap in April on the grounds that the State of Berlin lacks the necessary legislative power. In order to change this by means of a state opening clause, the outgoing Senate has now started a corresponding Federal Council initiative. This is obviously by far the most important problem for Berliners: In a survey by

Berliner Morgenpost

and Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg, almost half of those questioned named the question of housing as the most important or second most important priority.

The referendum is accepted if the majority of voters - but at least 25 percent of those entitled to vote - approve. However, since the "Deutsche Wohnen & Co. expropriate" referendum does not contain any concrete law or a constitutional amendment, the result is not binding. This is what happened in 2017 with the Tegel referendum, in which a majority of over 56 percent voted in favor of the continued operation of Tegel Airport. The Berlin House of Representatives opposed the result and voted to close Tegel.

So far, only the Berlin Left wants to implement it in any case.

Green top candidate Bettina Jarasch can imagine it as an "ultima ratio" - as a last resort.

The SPD, CDU and FDP, however, reject him.

(PF / AFP)

*

Merkur.de

is part of IPPEN-MEDIA