Die Linke, the largest party, is directly descended from the SED, the governing party in East Germany.
In September’s state elections in Berlin, the previous governing coalition between the center-right CDU and the center-left SPD lost heavily, as did the Greens. The populist right AfD performed strongly, but the far-left Die Linke did very well. It now appears that the new city government will be a coalition between Die Linke, the SPD, and the Greens.
This has taken a while to come together.
Why?
There were concerns, reported DW, part of Deutsche Welle, Germany’s publicly owned international broadcaster, about:
the often highly critical stance on Israel adopted by some members of the Left Party, coupled with criticism of the appearance of a figure linked to organized crime at an election night party.
The Left scored well with parts of Berlin’s population, not least the young and communities with more people of migrant backgrounds, with an unusually stern line on Israeli wars in Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East by the often-muted standards of German politics.
“Highly critical.”
“Unusually stern.”
Those are two ways of putting it.
Die Linke seems all too willing to be a part of the emerging Islamo-left “coalition.” Writing in National Review a couple of weeks back, John Gustavsson noted that:
In the 2023 Berlin state election, which took place before the October 7 attacks, the party won just 15 percent of the Muslim vote. Since then, however, while other parties have mostly held the line against antisemitism and ensured that Germany remains Israel’s strongest ally in Western Europe, Die Linke has been happy to cater to those with antisemitic views. At a rally arranged by the party, a rapper called for an intifada and had the crowd sing along to chants of “Death to the IDF.” …
By contrast, Die Linke passed a resolution in June officially adopting the [Gaza] genocide line as party policy. At its Election Night victory party in Berlin, attendees included a well-known “pro-Palestine” activist who had described slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as a “martyr hero.”
According to exit polls, 51 percent of Muslim voters opted for Die Linke.
Die Linke is directly descended from the SED, the governing party in East Germany. By mutual agreement, a “firewall” blocks any party from entering into a coalition (or de facto coalition) with the populist-right AfD. Curiously, no such prohibition applies to dealings with Die Linke.
The concerns that the SPD and Greens may have had regarding teaming up with Die Linke have apparently been overcome.
If such a government forms, among the consequences is set to be the introduction of a law in 2028 that would, reports Bloomberg, force private landlords with more than 10,000 apartments to transfer holdings above that threshold into public ownership. Compensation would be capped at €16 billion, seemingly representing a considerable discount to market value.
One of Europe’s biggest real estate companies argues that Germany has become “uninvestable” over proposals to seize privately owned apartments in the city of Berlin.
Heimstaden Bostad AB won’t allocate more capital to Germany while the proposal remains, Co-Chief Executive Officer Christian Fladeland said in an interview. The Swedish property group owns about 20,000 apartments in Berlin valued at roughly €5 billion ($5.6 billion), representing 15% of its portfolio.
“Obviously I believe Germany is uninvestable if this is how you make legislation,” Fladeland said on Friday. “Even though this is Berlin-specific, I think there’s very much spillover to how you can evaluate the risk of foreign direct investments in a country.”
Quite so.
It is likely that the proposed law will face major (and perhaps insurmountable) political and constitutional hurdles, but even the possibility that it might survive will discourage new investment in rental housing. The result will hurt renters (or would-be renters) and, at the same time, increase anger over the housing shortage. That won’t hurt Die Linke.