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Far-left party wins Berlin election, pledging to nationalise housing (www.reuters.com)
submitted 6 days ago by to c/world@quokk.au
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[–] 27 points 6 days ago (22 children)

How is a municipal government going to nationalize anything? Wouldn't you need control of the national government for this?

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  • [–] 19 points 6 days ago (7 children)

    Is there a word for “munipalising”?

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  • [–] 9 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (4 children)

    That's sort of what I'm wondering. Do they actually mean nationalizing or did they just say that because there's not a word for local public ownership.

    Which is weird because it's actually a fairly common thing. There should be a word for it. I mean maybe there is but I don't know it.

    Edit: I looked it up and it seems like the verb in this case would be to municipalize, as you said. This word seems to be very rarely used but if that's what they meant there is a term for it.

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  • [–] 12 points 6 days ago*

    Berlin has more than municipal power though. It has state power in the federation of German states.

    To draw a comparison, it's as if Toronto was its own province, without the Ford government being able to dictate what happens within its limits. Or Houston was a state, without Texas being able to extend its corrupt fingers over it.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 days ago (1 child)

    Let's keep in mind this was translated from German

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  • [–] 4 points 5 days ago*

    Indeed, the German word this was likely translated from has a different meaning. A literal translation would be something like "to transfer into government ownership", so the nation as a whole doesn't fearure in it, even though the overall meaning is very similar.

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  • [–] 13 points 6 days ago*

    Not an expert, but:

    Germany is a federation of states, this was a state election, not a local municipal election.

    There was a referendum about this issue that was broadly popular a couple of years ago.

    The most likely coalition is going to be, greens + social democrats + socialists.

    The socialists have said this is their red line on joining the coalition, The greens want to do it, but the social democrats are opposed and framed this the socialists simply not wanting to govern (this same coalition has ruled the state of Berlin before, though).

    We will see.

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  • [–] 8 points 6 days ago (7 children)

    The principle is that whatever the national law says has to be followed, but if there isn't a national law, the federal country can do something. Also housing is more of a local issue.

    There are laws to "eminent domain" stuff, but it has been mostly used for Autobahn and coal mining in the past and only affected peasants in little villages who couldn't fight back.

    Otherwise good question, that's what almost everyone is asking at the moment.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 days ago (6 children)

    My point is nationalizing means to place it under control of the national government. Presumably you would need the national government's active involvement in this. If they just mean the local municipality taking public ownership of something I think nationalizing is not the right word. Perhaps this is a translation issue?

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  • [–] 3 points 6 days ago* (5 children)

    Yeah, what is definitely happening is that the ownership of significant real estate will be transferred from private companies to... probably public benefit associates that aren't directly controlled by the government but sort of government adjacent. By legal force. I think it's fair to call it nationalization but the word doesn't matter that much.

    Back to public ownership I should add, it was sold to private companies to solve some short term debt issues after the reunification.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 days ago (4 children)

    I think the word does matter. I wouldn't want the national government owning my home because they're distant and unaccountable. A local organization is much more connected to the people.

    But maybe that's just my perspective, I'm not sure how common that is.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago

    On a side note: the houses being talked about are currently predominantly owned by large multi-national corps, thus even if it was the national government, that would be an improvement.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago* (1 child)

    But the national government has a lot of money and power, while local and regional governments generally have less.

    Anyhow, a lot of the now "private" housing in big buildings in German cities (also former western germany) WAS 'nationalised' until late '90s - '00s. In many cases it was (is) the property of a "city social housing construction/renting company" which has local/regional businesses, banks and political representation on the board. Only the last 20-30 years did these semi-public companies start to sell it all out (after reunification of Germany it sped up a lot). The argument was (and still is) that the renovation of a lot of these 'older' big apartment buildings was too expensive for those 'social' companies to bear, and by selling it fresh private capital would pour in and the old buildings would get renovated. In many cases renters got to stay where they were after sale to private investors for decades still and even keeping their old rent amount for all that time. Until the owner suddenly decides to "seriously upgrade the building": then they can kick everyone out relatively easily and set new prices after renovation. But in reality a lot of those "seriously upgrade" kicking renters out situations was just that: everyone out, a little bit of paint but no serious upgrading, and afterwards every apartment has new rent contracts for way more money. Often also because apartments were split into more units. Result for many inhabitants: being forced to leave the housing they've lived in for many decades, forced to pay higher prices, but get similar or worse housing quality. It's very very reasonable that in cities where this is a very widespread situation, renters are super pissed off at companies like "Vonovia" which dominate entire neighbourhoods and give 0 fucks about renters, only about their shareholders. Germany has a very high % of home renters and a pretty low % of home owners, especially in larger cities.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago

    That's exactly the issue though. Most national governments already have too much power. Giving them more by having them own housing seems to have little upside. I understand the downside of private ownership but I don't see the downside of local public ownership. If they are lacking in funds there are also local options for increasing revenue.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 days ago (1 child)

    I just watched a video about Vienna housing, in it the presenter said that about 1/3 or Vienna's housing was municipal-owned. So maybe not nationalized but a close by reference for what could be done.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 days ago* (1 child)

    Nationalizing is a bit of overambitious promise to be honest. However, they are hopefully going to pursue winding down the housing bubble by any other means possible. She recently told they will form a dedicated team just to deal with the greedy contrcts with illegal terms, to start with. No subrenting with higher rent, no short term contracts for furnished apartments with double price. They also plan to initiate more housing projects hopefully.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago*

    Last one is the most important. Even with considerable public housing, you will have issues if your housing stock is not enough to meet demand. If you artificially reduce prices, then you just change the problem from price to long wait-lists. Most major western cities have a housing shortage right now due to demographic changes.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 days ago

    Germanys national law already allows for the local government (be it municipal or state level) to force properties into public ownership. The previous owner has to get paid for that. So its basically a government forced sell of the property to the corresponding public entity (typically the city).

    They could have done that all along without any law changes. The discussion is only about if they should do that.

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