Berlin Abgeordnetenhaus, Plenarprotokoll 19/5, pp. 226-227.
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!
That not only
sometimes affects the large concerns but also the small housing provider. And
they meantime have developed fears due to this fatal policy which has governed
in the past five years.
We therefore
demand of the Senate to immediately examine the constitutionality and the
feasibility of the the referendum.
Anne Helm (Linke): We are doing it!
The voters
need to be informed of the results, not following three experts committees, but
most quickly. There is to be allowed no year-long suspension since the
consequences for the housing market would be fatal.
Yet we also
need to ask ourselves why the situation in the Berlin housing market is so
strained. Why is there so little housing in Berlin? Quite simply: The rents
rise because there is more demand, yet no more supply. There was too little housing
built, yet there were hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants hauled
into the country. And even if you are not happy to hear it: This uncontrolled,
great mass migration
Jian Omar (Greens): Shame on you!
is naturally
also one of the origins of the housing emergency in Berlin. This needs to be
seen realistically and for once acknowledged. This Senate also knows that.
Silke Gebel (Greens): Do not spread such things!
Frau Giffey
also knows that. Yet the Berliners are not your priority. The Senate prefers to
procure a dwelling for all migrants, even the illegal. You even write it in
your government declaration. It is there, vebatim: The WBS housing
authorization will be made possible for all those living in Berlin without
housing, independent of reception status.
Ronald Glaser (AfD): Inconceivable!
That is, ja, prima.
Gunnar Lindemann (AfD): That is, ja, super!
We however do
not have so much social housing. We have here in this city over 1 million
authorized for WBS. Where then shall they all find shelter? How much housing do
you then want to build? It simply does not function.
Gunnar Lindemann (AfD): Unsozial!
That is your
left, unsozial politics. While
families, pensioners, students or single parents find no housing in Berlin,
illegal immigrants receive access to publicly promoted housing space. That
really is unsozial.
That is not
enough. Social Senator Kipping wants to shelter refugees in hotels.
Senator Kipping: Nein, rubbish!
It is in the
newspaper.
Carsten Schatz (Linke): It is in the newspaper. Well, then!
You yourself
have said it: Hotels, hostels, dwellings – all.
Ronald Glaser (AfD): It already was all!
You have also
brought a proposal into the main committee with a quasi blank full powers which
you wanted for rental objectives. Yet the taxpayer must pay for it. Berlin
families can only dream of so much public solicitude.
Anne Helm (Linke): This is just unbelievable!
That is no
fair policy, with permission.
If we want to
relieve the Berlin housing market, we need to build and we must before all
consistently deport criminal and illegal migrants. You want to hear nothing of
this.
Harald Latsch (AfD): Deportation makes dwelling space!
Let us come
to the fourth imposition, which was the theme here today, the catastrophic
state of the Berlin education system.
Antje Kapek (Greens): Och!
Our students
routinely show up the worst in a national performance comparison. It is no
wonder, since performance plays no role in the education policy of this Senate.
Roman-Francesco Rogat (FDP): That is noted!
Instead, we
find in the government declaration the usual leftist phrases: Diversity,
inclusion, variety and so forth. The result is catastrophic. A third of those
in the Berlin Grundschulen can
scarcely read and write. Those leaving school lacking in basic numeracy are
scarcely to be trained. Every tenth student leaves school without a graduation.
What do you do, what does the Senate do?
Jeannette Auricht (AfD): Gender!
Ja, it genders. It deceives the parents of school-age
children, and really so. Berlin parents have trouble finding a good school for
their children. An important criterion for this decision is the portion of
German-speaking students in a school. That is logical. If in a class, half of
the students speak little or no German, a reasonable instruction according to
the teaching plan is scarcely possible. A lack of fluency in German in Berlin
schools is a problem.
Many parents
have acknowledged this problem. In the past school year, something like a third
of parents decided against the area school [Einzugsschule]
and the Senate knows of the problem. Yet instead of solving it, it is
concealed. The portion of students who speak no German at home shall in the
future no longer be counted. There is no information. Why? The parents thereby
no longer have the opportunity to completely inform themselves on the future
school of their children. The result is that he who is able to do so will
preferably send his child to a private school. Parents who can finance no
private school lose out. That is today’s leftist education policy. Also here,
fairness appears otherwise.
We therefore
demand full transparency in regards school performance data. The teaching plans
need to ensure the students training and study ability according to individual
capabilities. We need to strengthen the Gymnasien
and the promotion of the highly gifted. School should again become a place of
learning and achievement, not an experimental field for leftist ideologies.
Let us come
to the fifth imposition, the absolute trivialization of extreme leftist
violence in our city. According to criminal statistics, leftist violence in
Berlin has lately increased significantly. In one year, 2019, it almost doubled
and violence against police, firemen, sanitation workers ever more increases.
On that, Frau Giffey lets slip not a word, no a single one, and no word for the
arson attacks on autos. Believe it or not, extremists and criminals have in the
year 2021 torched over 700 autos in Berlin.
The Senate wants to fight rightist extremism. That is correct. We also want that. Yet we ought not to be blind in the left eye.
All forms of political and religious extremism are dangerous and must correspondingly be combated. Violence is never allowed to become a means of political argument, no matter from whom it proceeds.
An additional
blindspot in the Senate’s Interior policy is the theme of clan criminality. Colleague
Wegner has already addressed it. In the past year, Berlin State prosecutor
Knipsel has written a book on it. He writes, verbatim: “In Berlin, criminal
clans control entire city sectors.” 15 to 20 criminal clans with many hundreds
of members are responsible for a quarter of the cases of organized crime. It is
about drugs and human trafficking, murder and manslaughter, extortion, forced
prostitution, social fraud. What is terrifying is, on account of the
over-burdening of the Berlin courts, many urgent suspects, major dealers, even
murderers and rapists, need to be released on account of, for example, infringement
of the time period by investigators. To the Senate, this theme is not worth a
syllable. That is a scandal. Why do you not openly name it? Organized
criminality is clan criminality. Yet you close your eyes to it.
[to be continued; trans: tem]
