German Bundestag,
Plenarprotokoll 19/195, pp. 24627-24628.
Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen.
You of the Linke today demand ostensible repairs in the
protection of renters.
Pascal
Meier (Linke): That’s the fact!
Na, it cannot, for
all that, be quite so important for you; since even though you already in May
2019 had drawn up the motion, for a year and a half you agree to let it be lost
in the hopper. Either you yourself are not sure in regards the quality of your
motion, or it quite clearly indicates your hypocrisy and for you it is not at
all about really helping the people out there.
After rent control, rent limitation, rent index simulation,
rent cap, you today attempt an ostensible renter protection. Thereby all, and
really all, of your socialist, planned economy instruments always only have
one, single result: That fewer dwellings are built and fewer dwellings are
rented. Your rent cap alone has led to that here in Berlin 12,000 urgently
required dwellings were not built. Your ostensible social policy thus leads to
that an additional 12,000 families find no affordable housing.
Today you want to introduce a protection against personal
need eviction for those over 70 years. That sounds sozial in the first instance. Yet to what does that really lead? To
what does it lead?
Pascal
Meier (Linke): To that those over 70 years are protected! To what else?
In Germany are 24 million people of pension age. And you
with your motions push precisely these people out of the housing market. It
thus leads to that no one will still rent to a 70-year-old from fear of not
being able to give notice in case he himself will in fact at some point
urgently need the dwelling. With your proposal, you would thus attain nothing
other than a de facto discrimination against old people.
The reason for the housing policy catastrophe in Germany is
however not the landlords, so hated by you, but a decades-long failure of the
government, failed housing targets, a burdensome bureaucracy, and before all a
state which is the largest driver of construction and housing costs. Your
motion would itself and alone lead to that even fewer people would enter into
the risk of construction.
Daniela
Wagner (Greens): What then shall the local authorities say to that?
For to assist against the housing emergency, it is only and
alone to build, build, build, and yet again build, right honorable ladies and
gentlemen.
Ulli Nissen
(SPD): Good, that speech is over!
Daniela
Wagner (Greens): How shall the local authorities replace that? Artful dodger!
[trans: tem]
