Berlin's Left, SPD and Greens advance coalition talks as Merz opposes landlord expropriation

Coalition talks take shape

The SPD and the Greens in Berlin have agreed to open formal coalition talks with Die Linke, after two exploratory rounds had twice come close to failing. The SPD's Berlin leadership took its decision on the evening of Monday, 19 October, and the Greens backed the same course at a small party gathering that night. Die Linke must approve the talks at an extraordinary party congress about two weeks after 20 October, and negotiations could begin in early November if members agree. The party won the state election of 20 September with a record 25.7 per cent of the vote, and its lead candidate Elif Eralp could become Berlin's governing mayor if the talks succeed.

The expropriation plan

The three parties' paper for the talks proposes nationalising most of the assets held by landlords with more than 10,000 apartments, a measure that would likely affect more than 150,000 homes. They envisage paying no more than €16bn, which would average just over €100,000 per apartment, a level the Financial Times says is far below market value by its own calculations. The paper states that the parties would invoke a constitutional article never used before, allowing land and other assets to be expropriated for the public good against compensation. The idea grows out of Berlin's sale of more than 200,000 publicly owned apartments to private investors after reunification, followed by billions of euros spent buying back tens of thousands of them. Rents and a chronic housing shortage were the central issues of the Left's campaign.

The September vote results that shaped the talks are shown below.

Merz and the CDU and CSU push back

Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned against the plans on Tuesday, 20 October, at the Invest in Germany conference in Berlin, which hundreds of businesses attended. He told the gathering that the principle is not to be tested.

Protecting property and trust in a functioning market is the basis of our market economy and you don't experiment with it.

Over the weekend, Merz had told the Junge Union gathering in Bonn that talks with this left-wing party should end immediately. Bavarian premier Markus Söder, the CSU leader, called for a firewall against the left at the Junge Union's Deutschlandtag. Economy minister Katherina Reiche, a CDU politician, repeated her criticism of the scheme.

Private investments must be protected. Expropriations are out of the question for us.

La Repubblica reports that Merz has promised a law banning expropriations, while SPD infrastructure minister Verena Hubertz has confirmed she wants to present an anti-expropriation law.

Antisemitism row and the SPD split

Inside the SPD, a group of Bundestag members rejects a coalition with the Left in Berlin. They cite recurring antisemitism conflicts in the Berlin Left regional association, contacts between Left politicians and clan milieus, and how the party has handled those incidents. Another group of SPD members supports talks, arguing that the benchmarks should be verifiable positions, concrete action and binding rules. SPD general secretary Tim Klüssendorf said the party would for now trust the Left's leadership and does not need lectures from outside. According to La Repubblica, Left MP Vanessa Emde, who had denied Israel's right to exist during the campaign, has said she retracts nothing, and her party, which is threatening to expel her, has criticised her.

Potsdam CDU business wing post

The Mittelstands- und Wirtschaftsunion (MIT) Potsdam, led by Jan Jacobi, posted an AI-generated image on Instagram showing the Red City Hall in Berlin with minarets in Palestinian flag colours and a hammer and sickle. The caption said the 'Jewish question' was solved and that expropriation would now follow. Potsdam's Greens said the image combined a threatening staging with antisemitic language taken from Nazi usage. Green county chair Rebecca Lea Freudl called for deletion and a public apology.

A line has been crossed here.

The MIT has disabled comments on the post. Die Linke co-chair Jörg Schindler called the wording 'fascist talk', accusing the CDU of exploiting antisemitism for party politics.