With pithy words, Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) reiterated the government's plans to make socialization more difficult. “We will make it clear in an investment protection law that arbitrary left-wing socialization fetish is incompatible with the Basic Law,” Dobrindt told the “Bild” newspaper. Accordingly, the federal government wants to precisely regulate the requirements for socialization and the compensation to be paid for it.
Three central regulations are envisaged: Firstly, compensation for a partnership should only be possible at the full market value, which is to be determined by a valuation report. Second, compensation must be immediate and monetary. Thirdly, a “compelling necessity” for socialization must be explicitly proven. This would only be permitted as a last resort if all other housing policy instruments, such as new construction or housing subsidies, have been exhausted without success.
The background to the proposed law is the ongoing coalition negotiations in Berlin. There, the election winner, the Left, is planning, together with the Greens and the SPD, to legally prepare the possibility of socializing large housing stocks. According to the exploratory paper, the application of Article 15 of the Basic Law should be examined. Accordingly, private companies with more than 10,000 apartments could be affected, although a deductible of 10,000 apartments should apply. The compensation amount should be capped at 16 billion euros. The real estate group Vonovia would be particularly affected, as would companies such as Heimstaden, Covivio, the Adler Group and DVI. A corresponding law is to be presented to the House of Representatives in mid-2028.
However, due to Berlin's tense budget situation, even compensation amounting to 16 billion euros would be difficult to manage. If - as Dobrindt planned - the market value were used as a basis, the sum would increase significantly again.
According to constitutional lawyer Udo Di Fabio, the course announced by the Interior Minister is legally required: “The compensation must be appropriate, and in my understanding it is close to the market value,” said Di Fabio in the WELT interview. Constitutional lawyer Matthias Herdegen pointed out that the planned 16 billion was already “more than a third of the annual budget volume” in the capital. Should the market value be the basis for calculation in the future, Herdegen calculates with a “burden of around 24 to 28 billion euros,” as he wrote in WELT AM SONNTAG.
The Left in the Bundestag rejects Dobrindt's criticism of the red-green-red plan - and doubts that an "investment protection law" would undermine the plan: "What Dobrindt calls a 'socialization fetish' is part of the Basic Law and cannot be overridden by a law prohibiting socialization. It is a legal suicide mission that will not have any blocking effect on socialization in Berlin," says the spokeswoman for rent and housing policy, Caren Lay, WELT. "Incidentally, the CSU should also have recognized that apartments have no place in the hands of listed stock corporations. I can only appeal to Interior Minister Dobrindt to reflect on the values of a Christian-social party."
The Bundestag factions of the two parties with which the Left Party wants to form a coalition in Berlin - the SPD and the Greens - did not answer a WELT query on the subject.
The Social Democrats' coalition partner at the federal level, the CDU/CSU, however, is supporting Dobrindt. “Interior Minister Dobrindt's proposals are sensible and fair and essential as conditions for expropriation in a social market economy,” says Union parliamentary group vice-president Günter Krings (CDU) WELT. "On this basis, we as parliamentary groups of the Union and SPD can pass a good law very quickly. This is the only way we can ensure trust in Germany as an investment location in the face of chaotic government plans in Berlin."
The AfD parliamentary group's legal policy spokesman, Tobias Matthias Peterka, says: "It makes sense in principle to make it more specific to protect private property. What is significant, however, is that this seems necessary in Germany today." In addition, a Union minister “should rather work to end the harmful collaboration with left-wing parties instead of such erratic attempts to delete the data.”
