Between the SPD and the Left, and to a somewhat lesser extent the Greens, the election campaign recently saw a fierce dispute over who deserved the credit for the plans to tighten rent regulation. Who really came up with the ideas for how Berlin’s rental housing market could be regulated more strictly? Who invented the fight against rent profiteering?
The fact that this was seriously debated at all suggests a certain degree of agreement on the objectives. The three potential partners in a left-wing alliance largely agree on housing and rent policy. They want to crack down on illegal rent profiteering. This is already possible under existing law, as first court rulings and fines over completely excessive rent demands show. Deploying more staff and other resources to pursue rent profiteering and enforce compliance with the rent brake could become a central project of a red-green-red government.
Rent Police Force or State Office: Fighting Excessive Rents Is a Shared Goal
Whether this is called a “rent police”, as the SPD proposes, or a separate authority is set up to support tenants, as the Left advocates, should be relatively easy to resolve in coalition negotiations. All three potential partners are likely to support the creation of the rent register already approved by the CDU-SPD government. They are also likely to support calls for the federal government to give Berlin, as an area with a tight housing market, the authority to decide on a citywide rent cap.
All three also want to put greater pressure on private landlords. They all want quotas for social housing to apply to larger privatel housing portfolios as well. Given this level of agreement, it will not be easy for the SPD to allow an alliance with the Left to fail over the issue of expropriations. The Left’s leading candidate, Elif Eralp, indicated during the election campaign that she wants to work towards the socialisation of private housing companies from the outset, but that the process could take a long time. At the very least, however, the Left will have to demonstrate to its supporters that it is making a serious effort to achieve this. This issue is likely to prove difficult.
The Left Would Have to Ensure Its Commitment to Protecting Jewish Life Prevails Within the Party
There are also likely to be few disagreements over cleanliness. All three parties have called for more street cleaning and easier disposal of bulky waste. They could certainly work together on a programme for a cleaner Berlin. However, looming over all of this is the challenge of dealing with a budget deficit of three to four billion euros. In the view of the SPD and the Greens, the Left would have to refrain from making cuts to the police and security agencies.
On transport policy, the positions of the Left, the Greens and the SPD are also considerably closer to one another than to those of the CDU. The transition towards more sustainable transport and reducing car traffic in neighbourhoods are shared goals, although they would certainly disagree over some of the details of implementation.
The SPD and Greens would also want the Left to explicitly commit itself to protecting Jewish life and Israel’s right to exist. This is already the official position of the Left. The party’s leading figures are unlikely to have a problem with it. Whether they can ensure this position prevails throughout the entire party, however, remains an open question – and a decisive one for the formation of a coalition.