Dispute after the Berlin election: Everyone is looking at this city again

T he threat from Bavaria came with Bavarian broad legs. If Berlin is actually governed by the Left Party after last Sunday's election, Markus Söder trumpeted at the CSU parliamentary group meeting in Banz Monastery, then the state financial equalization system will be put to the test again: "It's starting to annoy us to no end that in the end we have to pay for the weakness of others and for wrong policies."

Even contracts are no longer sacred for Söder Markus. The recently signed capital financing agreement could also be unraveled again in this case, said Söder. Pacta sunt servanda? Not when a leftist named Elif Eralp rules in Berlin! The Bavarians are bringing out the big guns. And they're not the only ones. “Markus Söder is right,” said Hesse Prime Minister Boris Rhein (CDU). “No tax money for anti-Semites and left-wing extremists.”

The inclined Berliner and the equally inclined Berliner naturally ask themselves what else the two auxiliary police officers are conjuring up from their pockets in the name of the “right” politics. Will the federal police soon be standing in front of the Red City Hall in Berlin and checking the entrance?

There is of course a certain perplexity inherent in the lines of this text that have been written so far. Because outside Berlin, the demand to cut off the money supply to a left-wing Berlin will be met with strong support. The place of longing to which everyone who wanted to leave the stuffiness of the provinces behind them was once drawn, from this must-have metropolitan attitude to life, has long since become the shithole in whose hand-rubbing aversion the republic is collectively fraternizing and sistering. Too Babylonian. Too dirty. Too failed.

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And without money from the federal government, they are rubbing their hands sore, there is not much left and someone can finally give Berlin the coup de grace. A lot of what people turn their noses up at about Berlin isn't even wrong. The mountains of garbage are piling up, and in some corners the evidence of the broken windows theory can be demonstrated every minute. And when the dirty corners are cleared away, they reappear somewhere else. Pooh!

But Berlin isn't just dirty, it's also damn expensive. This is also why the Left, which wants to “make Berlin affordable,” won the election. Aren't there rents that are through the roof in Munich too? Or even in Wiesbaden? So why no rent cap there too? The federal government would only have to authorize the states to do this with an opening clause.

So far? Nothing there. What are the problems of cities in a large country? And if push comes to shove, the Bavarian broad-legged politician may turn off the money to his own state capital because it is now governed by the Green Party. He could be trusted.

Despite all the jokes that the topic invites: the provincial gesture with which the Bavarian and the Hesse present the conservative hatred of big cities has a history. It is the big city criticism of the Weimar Republic. Clean country versus dirty juggernaut. Where does this lead? “Babylon Berlin” is currently playing on television again.

The matter is also quite serious because the threats against a left-wing Berlin are stronger than against a possibly AfD-led Saxony-Anhalt.

So for now, shut up down there in the south. Because we in the north can do things differently. If you stop sending us money, we'll just use the wind power for ourselves and turn off your electricity.