Berlin's SPD leader Steffen Krach: The election promise breaker

It was in a hall in the Ludwig Erhard House at the Association of Berlin Merchants and Industrialists (VBKI). Steffen Krach was invited there in December, and as in many other places, the then SPD leading candidate clearly opposed expropriations. “If the economy is bad, we have no chance,” he said.

“What is your word still worth, Mr. Krach?” is how the Tagesspiegel gave the best possible title to an interview with the SPD state leader. There was nothing he was more determined about during the election campaign than the fact that there would be no socialization with him. Krach had repeatedly listed the counterarguments: not a single new apartment would be created, not affordable, and a deterrent for investors. It was his biggest election promise.

Now all of that doesn't count anymore? Krach continues to say in the interview that he thinks socialization is “not the right way”. But he wants to support him, this path. Not as a senator in the state government, but as a parliamentary group leader. It is the House of Representatives that decides on all necessary changes to the law and the budget as the basis for compensation.

Krach had ruled out expropriations not only for himself, but for the Berlin SPD as a whole. “If that is the red line for the Left Party, then you have to see which coalition you want to implement it with - at least not with the SPD,” he told Stern in August. Left Party federal chairwoman Ines Schwerdtner had previously declared the socialization of real estate companies to be a condition for government participation.

If noise came to the VBKI today, there would be far less applause than back then. Krach claims that he has implemented “a strong investor-friendly economic policy”. But business representatives don't sound enthusiastic at all: "The SPD and the Greens shake hands with the left for a course that can cause serious economic damage to Berlin," says VBKI President Harald Christ, assessing the exploratory paper. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry sees it similarly: “The biggest mortgage for Berlin are the plans to socialize large housing stocks.”

Now there are conflicting opinions in every coalition and also within a faction. They can be resolved through a compromise or through counter-deals. There is no other way to govern stably in the long term. The exception, however, are fundamental questions, and these undoubtedly include socialization. The fact that 160,000 instead of 220,000 apartments are now to be socialized and none built from 2021 does not change this.

Anyone who has spoken out against it as strongly as Krach has either had to prevent it from becoming government policy. Or just get up from the negotiating table and withdraw. That would have been a sign of backbone. But Krach remains - as head of the party and parliamentary group and negotiator. The credibility of politics cannot be damaged more than that.