"We do not speculate on rents as we do with pork meat"
In Germany, where homeowners are not as numerous as in Italy, the swirling rent increase is a big problem. In Berlin, a spontaneous tenant movement has initiated a bill to expropriate the large real estate companies, as described in this Deutschlandfunk report, which begins as follows:
More than 30,000 people move to Berlin every year. Investors push up prices, ancestral tenants are ousted. Therefore, an initiative causes a sensation that collects signatures for a referendum. She wants to expropriate large housing associations.
"What is the slogan? We are all staying! And who owns the rabbit heath? We own the Hasenheide! "
Berlin-Neukölln, Hasenheide 70/71. The tenants have arranged to protest in front of their house. "Together against repression and rent madness" is on the banners they have hung on the fence in front of the Gründerzeithaus. In the windows hang posters with the inscription: "We all stay". Today they sing against rent and repression, drink homemade cider.
"In Stuttgart, Freiburg, Potsdam, Cologne and Bochum. We hear that from there to Berlin, there is exactly the same topic, rent costs more than we deserve '.
"We just want to point out that it is, and that's why we stand here and sing a bit weird."
Says Friederike Schönebach. Currently, their rent is still unrivaled. The graphic designer pays just under 500 euros for a refurbished 96-square-meter apartment with stove heating. But the large Neuköllner apartment building was sold at the turn of the year, now fear all luxury refurbishment and expulsion.
Tenants organize against repression
Daniel Diekmann sings loudly today at the protests in Neukölln, he represents the tenant initiative Habersaatstraße.
"Of the 106 apartments, 80 apartments are empty, speculative vacancy of eighty apartments, and twenty are still inhabited. We are the Gallic village in Mitte and we are waiting and have already done a lot. There were a lot of intimidation attempts, mailboxes broken, mail stolen, et cetera. "
Throughout Berlin, tenants organize against crowding out and priceless rents. The protests culminate on Saturday in a big demonstration. On this day also starts the referendum "German Housing and Co. expropriate".
No, no, says initiator Rouzbeh Taheri and dismisses - we do not want socialism. But:
"We want to free a certain area, the apartments, from the dictatorship of the market. And say that the existential needs of humans, such as living, must not be a plaything on the stock market. You can not trade with flats on the stock market like pork halves. "
Targeting companies with more than 3,000 apartments
The 45-year-old quickly pulls on his homemade cigarette, then answers Taheri - flat cap and hoodie - patiently always the same questions. All profit-oriented real estate companies with more than 3,000 apartments in Berlin want to expropriate the initiative, based on Article 15 of the Basic Law.
"It shows that the old saying of Victor Hugo, the French writer, is true. That nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. "
David Eberhardt sighs. The spokesman of the umbrella association of housing companies BBU have been receiving requests from other parts of the republic for weeks. The real estate industry asks: For God's sake, what's going on in Berlin? That sounds like the GDR. Eberhardt sighs again and says:
"That rents are still very affordable compared to other major cities, with 6.40 euros on average, so it's really hard to convey to anyone living in Munich, Cologne or Hamburg that this expropriation madness has broken out. "
Red-red-green Senate misses self-set Neubauziele
The average rent is 6.40 euros, but new lettings are twice as high. In no other German city rents have risen as fast as in Berlin - because the immigration is enormous, at the same time misses the red-red-green Senate its self-imposed new building goals. The co-governing left supports the referendum, the Greens are still undecided.
And the SPD? The expropriation petition brings distress to Governing Mayor Michael Müller and his Social Democrats. After a heated debate at the state party conference last Saturday, the SPD postponed the decision for or against expropriation.
"For some people in the city, talking about terms such as expropriation means talking. And there are a lot of people in town who have experience with it. And not always good ones. "" One sometimes thinks back 30 years and further east. "" The question of which role private property should play in this society is a left-wing question, but also a social-democratic one. " that land is expropriated so that we can build flats faster and that is no longer a speculative object.
"Michael Müller, Governing Mayor and SPD country chief, speaks out against expropriation - but for pragmatic reasons:
"Because it's fraught with high risks. It is a thing that is legally unfounded in years. It's something that would overwhelm us financially in the state budget. "
Many will sign the referendum
"Therefore wake up, damned of this earth, we will not let ourselves be ousted so easily ..."
Back to the tenant protest in the Neuköllner Hasenheide. Expropriate residential construction companies? Not many want that. They will sign the referendum anyway.
"The expropriation history? I think that's not the right way. Although I will sign it on principle and protest. "" In principle, I do not find property wrong. But the way property is handled in practice leads to problems that ultimately make democratic living conditions impossible. "
