Coalition | What red-green-red could agree on in Berlin

Red and green alone do not make a rainbow: Werner Graf (l.), Elif Eralp and Steffen Krach at the CSD Photo: dpa/Fabian Sommer The Berlin SPD was in favor of the capital hosting the Olympic Games in 2036, 2040 or 2044. The Left and the Greens took an active part in a popular initiative to forego it. But if the three parties start coalition negotiations, they will no longer have to argue about it. Berlin withdrew its application, which it considered hopeless, on Thursday. This Saturday, the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) only has to decide whether Munich or the Rhine-Ruhr region should try for the games. The DOSB evaluation commission rated their applications as very good, while Berlin's only rated them as good.

Basically, Berlin's Green Party leader Werner Graf wants to send the CDU into the opposition. He is striving for new, progressive politics. “But we are only ruling out a coalition with the AfD,” Graf made clear two days before the Berlin House of Representatives election on September 20th. Whether a Senate can be formed without the CDU - a red-green-red Senate - ultimately does not depend solely on the Greens, he reminded. The left must also want to govern. “We hope so.” And the SPD must take part.

The Left wants to govern, with top candidate Elif Eralp as governing mayor, assured the Left's state chairwoman Kerstin Wolter. However, it depends on the content that can be agreed upon with the Greens and the SPD - and on whether the SPD even wants such a coalition, explained Wolter.

To do this, the SPD must, above all, clarify its relationship to the planned expropriation of housing companies. The Left wants to realize what there was already a majority for in the 2021 referendum. Private holdings of more than 3,000 apartments are to be socialized. The Greens are also in favor - but the SPD's top candidate Steffen Krach is not. He had promised during the election campaign that there would be no expropriations with him. The outgoing Economics Senator Franziska Giffey (SPD) had already opposed the expropriation in 2023 and preferred to form a coalition with the CDU rather than continue to govern as Governing Mayor with the Greens and the Left, which would have been mathematically possible after the election at that time.

But now the CDU and SPD no longer have a majority and would have to bring the Greens on board. It would be a coalition like the one that existed in the Brandenburg state parliament from 2019 to 2024 and worked rather poorly there. There was always a crunch between the CDU and the Greens. It was a miracle that the two parties managed to survive the legislative period.

Unlike SPD top candidate Krach, his party's election program does not exclude the socialization of apartments. The Solomonic formulation can be found there: “We are creating a new social housing order that strengthens and significantly expands the housing market oriented towards the common good. To do this, we used all legal options - including those that the constitution offers us.

Apart from that, the positions on housing policy are not that far apart. In his program for the first 100 days as governing mayor, Krach promised that he would send out the rent police to punish usury. The Left also wants to take consistent action against brazen landlords who are to be stopped by public prosecutors. The Greens also campaigned for affordable rents.

All three parties are committed to housing construction, and all three want to convert empty high-rise office buildings for residential purposes. The Left, the Greens and the SPD reject the CDU's desired development on the edge of the old Tempelhof airport. They respect a corresponding referendum from 2014.

The Left only wants to allow terminations for personal use for first-degree relatives; the SPD wants to limit such terminations to the nuclear family. The Left also wants to exclude significantly more hardship cases from termination for personal use - for example for seniors, the sick and families with children.

As far as the capital's BER airport in Schönefeld is concerned, which is jointly owned by the states of Berlin and Brandenburg as well as the federal government, the SPD promises to maintain the current night flight ban from midnight to 5 a.m., while the Left and the Greens want to extend this to the period from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.

The Left and the Greens are in favor of a nationwide 30 km/h speed limit in urban traffic. The SPD promises this speed limit around daycare centers, schools, playgrounds and retirement homes. The SPD, just like the Left and the Greens, does not attach any importance to the further construction of the A100 city motorway, but promises the Tangential East Link, a multi-lane expressway for which a wide swath would have to be cut through the Wuhlheide forest area. The Greens reject this, but the plan is not a priority for The Left.

In detail, the parties make different proposals for buses and trains. However, they agree that there are more tram routes and that social and Germany tickets should be cheaper.

For the Greens, who were attacked as “car haters” during the election campaign, parliamentary group leader Werner Graf tried to clarify that drivers would also benefit if more people used public transport or bicycles. Then those who want or have to drive would be stuck in traffic jams less often.

In the area of ​​education, the potential coalition partners could quickly come to an agreement. The SPD and the Greens promise to double the number of community schools. The Left wants two new community schools per district. With currently 25 such educational institutions across Berlin, this amounts to the same thing. All three parties agree that community schools should primarily be built as part of the school building offensive. But while the SPD and the Greens want to preserve high schools, the Left demands “overcoming the structured school system.” However, this is only declared as a “medium-term goal” and should not stand in the way of an agreement.

On the other hand, there is potential for conflict in a demand that the Greens advertised across the board during the election campaign: “Reduce school stress.” This should be achieved by writing fewer class tests and awarding fewer grades. The Left wants to forgo grades in numeric form until grade 9. Instead, there should be written feedback on the level of performance. Homework in the traditional sense should also be avoided. Instead, schoolwork should be completed under supervision in the afternoon at school. The SPD, on the other hand, wants to continue the path of regular comparison work that was chosen under Education Senator Katharina Günther-Wünsch (CDU). This is formulated in the election manifesto: “We are orienting ourselves more towards transparently collected education and development data.” We are talking about more frequent “learning status surveys”, commonly known as exams.

The fact that there is not something on every question in the parties' election programs is clear from the fact that the SPD made do with 65 pages in its program. The Greens needed 255 pages, the Left even 336 pages. When it comes to waste disposal, however, the three parties would only have to agree on whether the bulky waste should be picked up free of charge once or twice a year from each household. The Left's concept of setting up neighborhood canteens in which subsidized meals are served for three euros at least fits in with the Greens' ideas for healthy canteen food.

The AfD should be banned and anti-Semitism should be combated. The fact that Jews “are afraid in Berlin is unacceptable,” write the Greens. "The protection of Jewish life and the fight against anti-Semitism are non-negotiable for us." The Greens see dangers from both right-wing extremist and fascist ideologies as well as from Israel-related anti-Semitism, which comes from parts of the political left and the Islamist milieu. But the Greens assure: "We make a clear distinction between anti-Semitic positions and objective criticism of the Israeli government."

The left promises to keep the memory of the victims of fascism and the Shoah alive. The financing of important memorial sites such as the Wannsee Conference House, like anti-fascism, should be anchored in the state constitution. The Left expects nothing from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution given its involvement in the NSU scandal. The secret service remains important for the SPD. The SPD asserts: “Those who are excluded will receive our solidarity.” Mentioned here are Jews, Sinti and Roma, Muslims and blacks.

Whether a coalition is negotiated and can work successfully depends not least on the people involved and their relationship with one another. At least there seems to be good chemistry between Werner Graf and Elif Eralp, even if he prefers to listen to techno music and she prefers hip-hop. Their results at the voting machine were significant. The computer spat out 100 percent agreement with the theses of their own party for both of them. But the other party was not far behind. Steffen Krach deviated from his SPD by 1.5 percentage points and had the second highest agreement with the liberal party Volt.

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