The leftist agenda prepares the ground for a fierce electoral battle in Berlin. Radical plans from the Green Party: expropriation, implementation of reporting, flight ban.
The Green Party in Berlin has unveiled a hardline left-wing program for the September 20 election to the House of Representatives, proposing strict controls on housing, transport, and luxury travel in the German capital.
At the heart of the program is the plan to implement the referendum “Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co.”, which would transfer up to 300,000 apartments from private ownership into public hands. Large landlords would also be forced to allocate part of their housing stock to social housing, with higher quotas for companies owning more than 1,000 or 2,000 apartments.
The Greens also want to tighten rules against what they call the “misuse” of housing. Citizens would be encouraged to report suspected illegal subletting or vacant apartments using a new reporting app linked to an interactive public map. Violations could be punished with fines of up to 50,000 euros.
In transport policy, the party backs the “Berlin car-free” citizens’ initiative and wants to ban most private cars from the inner S-Bahn ring, allowing only essential services such as tradespeople and care workers. At the same time, they propose bringing back a low-cost public transport ticket priced at nine euros to promote sustainable travel.
Another major proposal is a ban on private jets at Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER – Berlin Brandenburg Airport), which would affect about 8,400 flights per year. The Greens argue that wealthy jet owners should no longer impose noise and emissions on nearby residents, even though the publicly funded airport would lose income from takeoff and landing fees.
The plans have drawn criticism from housing experts and cooperatives. ديرك إنزيسبرغر, head of a Berlin housing cooperative, warned that higher social housing quotas could reduce funds for new construction and climate investments. Politically, the program places the Greens in direct competition with the Left Party and the SPD, making a future coalition with the CDU increasingly unlikely.