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After months of legal scrutiny, the Berlin internal administration declared a planned referendum to expropriate large groups of houses permissible. The administration announced Thursday. A large-scale signature collection could begin in a few months.
As with the recently adopted rent cap, Berlin would enter entirely new territory. First, however, the red-red-green Senate has to position itself on the single bill at the national level, then the House of Representatives.
The initiative “expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co.” she wants to achieve a non-binding request to the Senate to “initiate all the necessary measures for the transfer of real estate and lands to common property for socialization purposes.” […] they are mandatory, “says the message.
He wants to “socialize” the companies that own more than 3,000 apartments and promote a referendum. In a first step, it had submitted 77,000 signatures the previous year to request the start of the referendum. The mandatory legal review by internal administration lasted for more than a year.
According to the internal administration, the admissibility control showed that the popular initiative is formally admissible. There were a sufficient number of supporting signatures. It is aimed at an “other resolution within the purview of the House of Representatives decision-making competence” and, if successful, would be formally non-binding on the Senate.
The organizers of the popular initiative are optimistic
After a long political and legal dispute, the interior administration reached an informal agreement on a voting text with the initiative on July 22. However, it took another eight weeks before official approval was granted, which has yet to be confirmed by the Senate. This could happen next Tuesday.
The referendum organizers are optimistic and hope that the majority of Berlin’s population will support their far-reaching demands. However, there is no binding bill to vote, but rather an “other resolution”, as it is called in the Berlin Voting Act.
If the referendum is really successful, the Senate can be subjected to political pressure, but not legally forced to expropriate real estate groups.
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In the text of the vote, which has now been classified as legally admissible by the interior authorities, it says: “Therefore, the Berlin Senate is requested to initiate all measures to transfer real estate and land to common property with Socialization purposes in accordance with article 15 of the Basic Law. Mandatory are “. This should apply to real estate in Berlin and the land on which it is built. This applies to apartments that are owned by an owner “to the point where it is defined as ready for socialization”.
Now the second stage of the referendum can begin
As of June 2019, the initiative had collected around 77,000 signatures for its expropriation request; 20,000 valid signatures were required. Now the second stage of the referendum can begin, in which the legal deadlines must be respected. Following the Senate decision, the House of Representatives has four months to comment on the request.
If the parliament does not essentially accept the demands of the initiative, the referendum takes place. Within four months, seven percent of Berliners eligible to vote must support the expropriation demands. If successful, a referendum will be held in another four months, in other words, in the summer of 2021 at the earliest.
The goal of the initiators is to hold the vote on the same day as the elections for the Bundestag and the House of Representatives, that is, in September next year. The next state government would have to deal with the consequences of a successful expropriation referendum. (with dpa)
