Ban on socializing housing: German government still divided on draft
As Berlin weighs a leftist alliance, the Interior Ministry says a planned federal ban on socializing large housing portfolios is still being coordinated.
Graphic: TERRA WORLD NEWS (own graphic based on the sources listed)
A ban announced by Germany's conservative-Social Democrat coalition on transferring large private housing portfolios into public ownership is still being negotiated within the federal government, a spokesperson for the Interior Ministry told the German Press Agency. The ministry led by Alexander Dobrindt of the CSU has technical lead, with the SPD-run justice and construction ministries also involved.
So far, there is only a July decision by the coalition committee and no draft bill. The conservatives fear damage to Germany as a business location. Pressure is mounting because the Left Party, Greens and SPD in Berlin agreed in an exploratory paper to socialize companies owning more than 10,000 apartments, letting them keep a base stock of 10,000. Berlin's Greens plan to vote on the exploratory results at a small party convention Monday evening.
A ban is legally contested. Article 15 of the Basic Law explicitly allows land to be transferred to public ownership by law. In this area of concurrent legislation, the federal government may act only under certain conditions. Several legal scholars have warned that a pure prohibition law could fail at the Federal Constitutional Court as impermissible "negative legislation" and would likely need a positive aim, such as creating housing.