Berlin
Abgeordnetenhaus, Plenarprotokoll 19/5, pp. 224-227.
Right
honorable Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.
– The
microphone is not on?
Stefan Evers (CDU): It’s OK!
Vice-president Bahar Haghanipour: Now, Frau Dr. Brinker, you have the word! Now it is on!
Now it is – wunderbar! From the top: Right honorable
Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.
Paul Fresdorf (FDP): You repeat yourself!
So we can
well continue. From 2015 to 2019, the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei lived in Berlin.
In December, he was asked in an interview whether he was happy to have lived in
Berlin – to which, Ai Weiwei, verbatim: “No…Berlin is a city without hope.” And
he put the question: How can “the world’s third most powerful nation have a
capital city like a third world country?” – A good question.
Anne Helm (Linke): Anti-Berliner!
The answers
we have heard here today. Yet not Berlin is hopeless. This Senate, this
coalition gives no ground for hope. Frau Giffey’s government program loses
itself in pettiness. It is not the program for a world city. All that this
Senate has to offer are empty promises and rhetorical announcements.
The phrases
themselves are certainly not original, since most of the promises we already
know. For five years has Michael Müller already declared to us these fine
phrases, in part almost word for word. Müller, at that time: “The Senate pursues
the goal of strengthening the social cohesion.” Frau Giffery, today: The Senate
is for social justice and strengthens the cohesion.
Sebastian Walter (Greens): Very observant!
Anne Helm (Linke): And it is still right!Yes, yet how
will it then be implemented? There was certainly no rational implementation.
That is precisely the problem. Michael Müller said: Berlin is “a place of
welcome and proud of its variety.” Frau Giffey: “Variety is strength and a
Berlin trademark.”
Anne Helm (Linke): Yes, and in five years it remains just so! That I can promise you!
Prima! And what follows that? What happens?
Herr Müller at that time, five years ago, said: The Senate will direct its exertions…to
the further strengthening of Berlin’s industrial venue. What then followed? We have
lost many businesses. Frau Giffery says: The Senate wants to develop Berlin as
one of Europe’s most significant economic and technological venues.
Antje Kapek (Greens): She has quickly adjusted that – considerably!
Four months
after the election, we must state: The new edition of the left-green coalition
is only a faint copy of the Müller Senate. Frau Giffey has copied her
government program of the other day from Herr Müller – scarcely an idea of her
own, much stuck together in copy and paste procedures. Frau Giffey’s program
for Berlin is a plagiarism without a concept and ideas.
Anne Helm (Linke): That was original!
Berlin has
not deserved this. The 3.5 million Berliners have not deserved this. Yet for
this Senate, it is not about the Berliners. This government program is a stress
test for this city and the people who live here. The Senate will make our city
yet more poor, yet more retrograde, yet more unjust and yet more foreign. How
that goes can be read in the government declaration. This will continually come
to be more expensive for the the Berliners.
I want to
here concentrate only on the greatest burdens, the heftiest impositions. The first
imposition: Red-green-red want to continue – verbatim – “The welcome culture
policy” and make Berlin a place of global refuge. What does that mean
concretely? The family unification should be facilitated, the rescue at sea in
the Mediterranean should be promoted, the passport obligation for foreigners
should elapse, immigrants should be more rapidly naturalized [eingebürgert], the right to vote should
be given to all after five years. Researchers like Prof. Raffelhüschen, this I
have said here many times, have pointed out: The social state requires borders.
We cannot invite the entire world to Berlin. Our means and possibilities are
limited.
Gunnar Lindemann (AfD): Bravo!
Your
government program is an open invitation to millions of people in Africa and
the Orient who presently sit on packed suitcases. According to a UN study, a
third of Africans want to emigrate to Europe. That is over 300 million people.
We simply cannot receive all of these people; that doesn’t go. Your policy of
the unrestricted welcome culture has nevertheless resoundingly failed.
Let us come
to the second imposition: Berlin today already has over 65 billion euros in debts.
To this pertains the promises to our State employees for the payment of
pensions, which in addition total over 60 billion euros. All together we thus
have an indebtedness for the State of Berlin of far over 100 billion euros.
This is the highest indebtedness in the history of this city. Who should pay
this? Of that, there is nothing in the program. To that, the Senate gives no thought.
We live at the cost of future generations. This is to the highest degree
unjust.
Yet it is also
unjust in regards the taxpayers, for example, in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg.
They of course must co-finance this extreme immoderation. With 3.6 billion
euros, Berlin is the greatest recipient State in the financial equalization of
the States. Yet this cannot be a long-term situation.
Tobias Schulze (Linke): And now your savings proposals!
– Of that we
can gladly speak, but we are doing that separately in the main committee.
Tobias Schulze (Linke): No, now!
There are a
number of savings proposals. We have already spoken to you of that. We come up
in any case with many billions of euros. We have done it in the last budget
consultations. There is definitely in this city a savings potential of 3.5
billion euros.
Tobias Schulze (Linke): Which? Now for once concretely!
No one will
be the poorer for it; it is quite brief for so much.
Let us come
to the third imposition which today was often the theme, to the construction of
housing. We all know how tight the housing market in Berlin is. The Berliners
are rightly bitter and have voted for the expropriation of large real estate
concerns. Here, however, the coalition cannot unify itself as to whether they
want to respect or ignore the result of the referendum.
Anne Helm (Linke): We are very united!
I honestly do
not believe that you are united on it,
Anne Helm (Linke): Yes, nevertheless!
since what
then now happens? Here I ask you, Frau Giffey, in all frankness: What is it now
with the referendum? Should large real estate concerns be expropriated or not?
I know what you also said here today; you cannot answer because the coalition
is not united and must now establish a working circle, a so-called experts
committee, which shall examine how an expropriation
Sebastian Schlüsselberg (Linke): Socialization [Vergesellschaftung]!
of real estate
owners is compatible with the Basic Law. For builders and investors, this is a
fatal signal. Who then still wants to build housing in Berlin when it is not
clear whether an expropriation threatens?
Tobias Schulze (Linke): Everyone
wants to build here!
[to be
continued. trans: tem]
