Dobrindt's expropriation brake: Berlin Left calls bill unconstitutional, DIW sees €25bn
Berlin's Left Party says the planned investment protection law is unconstitutional. A DIW economist calculates what socialization at market value would cost.
Archive image · Photo: Harald Bischoff / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped and resized)
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) has presented key points for an "investment protection law": socialized housing companies would receive full market value, immediately and in cash, and a state would have to prove that all other housing policy tools had been exhausted. The "arbitrary left-wing socialization fetish" is incompatible with the Basic Law, he told Bild.
Left Party lead candidate Elif Eralp told ZDF the plan was "a law against Berlin's tenants": "That's why I clearly assume it is unconstitutional." Berlin SPD lead candidate Steffen Krach accused the conservatives in the Süddeutsche Zeitung of "an outrageous lack of planning", ZDF reported. The SPD-led justice and construction ministries, however, helped draft the key points.
The Left, Greens and SPD want to socialize about 160,000 apartments in Berlin owned by companies with more than 10,000 units and cap compensation at 16 billion euros. DIW economist Konstantin Kholodilin calculates, according to the Berliner Zeitung, that market value for about 170,000 apartments would come to roughly 25 billion euros. Jena constitutional lawyer Timo Laven told ZDF that even an unconstitutional law would hold Berlin back until a ruling by the Constitutional Court.