The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, communicated this Monday that he wants to speed up the processing of a federal regulation aimed at preventing the expropriation of homes, after the victory of The Left in the elections of the city-state of Berlin, where it ran with the proposal to expropriate large companies owning rental apartments.
"Germany has to make it clear to international investors that private property is not expropriated. The first drafts are already being worked on by the ministries of Justice and Interior," Merz explained at a press conference from Berlin. The final decision on the law will be made "relatively quickly," he predicted.
Merz's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), which supports his government, agreed in July to push forward a federal law that blocks the nationalization by the federal states of privately rented homes.
"In the end, they will not be able to afford it," Merz stated, "but the message that such initiatives send both nationally and internationally has been so devastating that it is necessary to clarify by law that this practice is unacceptable."
Regarding the outcome of the elections in Berlin, Merz maintained that more than 40% of the electorate has opted for "destructive" forces, "that question our parliamentary political system and that try to win people over with radical and simplistic solutions."
From The Left, for its part, they maintain their plan to expropriate rental companies, relying on the 2021 referendum in which the majority of Berliners supported the socialization of large housing holding companies.
The proposal would imply the nationalization of more than 240,000 apartments, so the regional government would go from controlling 20% to over 30% of the residential stock of the German capital. Currently, public rents are clearly below the prices imposed by large real estate corporations.
In the elections to the parliament of the city-state of Berlin held on Sunday, The Left has positioned itself as the first force with 25.7%, followed by the CDU with 18.8%, AfD with 16.3%, The Greens with 14.3% and the SPD with 12.1%. With this distribution of votes, The Left would have the option to form a government with the ecologists and the support of the SPD, while the alternative would involve a coalition between CDU, SPD and The Greens.