The fight for lower rental prices in Berlin is entering the next round. After the Federal Constitutional Court tipped the rent cap in April, a referendum is to stop the growth in rent prices. “Expropriation!” Shout activists in Berlin who are currently being widely heard. The target of their attack are all real estate companies with more than 3000 apartments in Berlin. It could hit up to 15 companies, including Deutsche Wohnen and Vonovia. Specifically, the supporters of the “Deutsche Wohnen & Co expropriate” initiative are calling for the corporations' apartments to be transferred to an institution under public law. What seems like a small movement of socialist dreamers is, according to surveys, pretty real: around 47 percent of voters are in favor of socialization.
A simple majority of the electorate is required for success.
At least a quarter of those eligible to vote must take part.
Given the election date, that shouldn't be a problem.
The vote on the association of large real estate groups will take place on the same day as the Bundestag election and the election of the Berlin House of Representatives on September 26th.
People against real estate kings
The rebellion is reminiscent of many chapters in the history books - the storming of the Bastille in protest against the arbitrary king or the expropriations in the GDR. The goal is similar: to change the balance of power. Today a simple cross on the ballot should be enough. “Yes, are they allowed to do that?” The Austrian Emperor Ferdinand I is said to have asked when the people stormed the streets to revolution in 1848. The same question arises now: Yes, can the people simply disempower the real estate kings?
The initiators refer to Article 15 in the Basic Law. There it says: "Land, natural resources and means of production can be transferred into common ownership or other forms of public economy for the purpose of socialization through a law that regulates the type and extent of compensation." never applied.
The Berlin Senate has therefore commissioned three reports.
In all of them, the lawyers come to the same conclusion: Yes, socialization can be legally defensible.
"There must be a community purpose for this," says Reiner Geulen, constitutional lawyer and one of the experts.
“In this case it is due to the desolate Berlin housing market.” In the last six years, the price per square meter has risen by 28 percent, with tenants currently paying an average of 10.49 euros per square meter.
Compared to other German cities, this is in the midfield, "but the rent level is rising the most in Berlin," says Michael Voigtländer, real estate economist at IW Cologne.
The matter of the will of the people
84 percent of the housing stock in the capital are rented apartments. Thus, the rising rental prices hit a large part of the 3.6 million Berliners - including many voters. Politicians from all parties promote affordable housing in their programs. The word “affordable” leaves room for interpretation. In theory everything is affordable - but not for everyone.
The referendum should change that. It is often incorrectly referred to as expropriation - including the initiative itself - but the term “socialization” is legally correct in this debate. Ultimately, the apartments are to be transformed into a communal form. What is legally more controversial is how high the compensation to the real estate companies should be. Market value or lower - opinions are divided here. The Berlin Senate is assuming a sum of between 29 and 39 billion euros, the initiative of 10 billion.